Podcasts about Pepsi

Happy New Year, Retrospectors! We'll return with new episodes from Monday 5th January, but in the meantime the team have been choosing their favourite episodes from 2025 that are worthy of a second listen. First up, Olly has selected our conversation about ‘New Coke'. Coca-Cola was approaching its 100th birthday on 23rd April, 1985, when it unveiled a new beverage at New York City's Lincoln Center: the ‘smoother, rounder, bolder' flavour of ‘New Coke'. The success of Diet Coke had fragmented the market, and, in response to Pepsi's aggressive marketing campaigns targeting younger consumers, Coke had sought to introduce a sweeter formula. But, instead of offering the new formula alongside the original, they made the catastrophic decision to discontinue their classic recipe, known as Merchandise 7X.  The company had conducted extensive taste tests involving 190,000 consumers, which indicated a preference for the new formula. However, these tests overlooked the deep emotional connection many had with the original Coke. Protest groups like the Society for the Preservation of the Real Thing and Old Cola Drinkers of America, founded by Gay Mullins, emerged, reflecting the public's dissatisfaction, and, just 79 days after the launch, on July 11th, 1985, Coca-Cola held a press conference to announce the return of the original formula - now branded as "Coca-Cola Classic."  In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly reveal those hardcore cola fans who stockpiled soda like it was gold; uncover the psychiatrist's opinion that Coke's most committed customers were behaving as if they'd experienced a bereavement; and consider the conspiracy theories that suggest Coca-Cola engineered the whole debacle deliberately… Further Reading:  • ‘Coke, The Taste That Distresses' (The Washington Post, 1985): https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/06/07/coke-the-taste-that-distresses/1f0758dd-98a2-4a9d-ae1c-c188c2228354/ • ‘New Coke Didn't Fail. It Was Murdered' (Mother Jones, 2019): https://www.motherjones.com/food/2019/07/what-if-weve-all-been-wrong-about-what-killed-new-coke/ • ‘1985: Coca-Cola launches new Coke' (CBS Evening News, 1985): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8j97dOLsyk #80s #Advertising #Mistakes #Food Love the show? Support us!  Join 

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USIn this powerful episode of the True Life Podcast, host George Monty delivers a hard-hitting “daily transmission” exposing how corporations and systems deliberately manufacture scarcity to drive profits, control populations, and prevent true abundance from reaching everyday people. Drawing on real-world examples from food, housing, medicine, and more, George reveals the patterns of consolidation, surplus destruction, and artificial shortages that keep society desperate and divided. He calls for recognition, documentation, and rebellion against this “scarcity weapon,” urging listeners to investigate local resources and demand the withheld plenty. This episode is a wake-up call to see beyond the narratives of inflation and supply chain issues to the engineered theft of abundance.Host: George MontyPodcast: True Life PodcastDuration: Approximately 10-15 minutes (based on transcript length)Release Date: Estimated based on content references (late 2025)Listen Here: Explore more episodes and connect with George Monty on the TrueLife platform. Key Timestamps & HighlightsGeorge's monologue flows as a continuous narrative, but we've broken it down into thematic sections with approximate timestamps for easy navigation:•  00:00 - 01:00: The Illusion of Struggle George opens by challenging the narrative that you're failing—it's engineered starvation in abundance. He prompts listeners to check their finances and see how earnings vanish despite higher pay, labeling it “2025's manufactured scarcity” designed for control and extraction.•  01:00 - 02:30: From Ancient Famines to Modern Engineering Contrasting natural famines with today's deliberate hunger, George highlights U.S. food production capacity (enough for 10 billion people) versus 34 million facing food insecurity amid record corporate profits.   He exposes the “machine that weaponizes emptiness.” •  02:30 - 04:00: Food Shortages Exposed•  2024 egg shortage: Not avian flu, but corporate consolidation by Cal-Maine Foods (20% market control), leading to tripled prices and $535 million in profits. •  2022-2024 baby formula crisis: Abbott's monopoly (43% market) caused shutdowns, boosting stock 34% while parents turned to black markets. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/doj-egg-prices-rise-cal-maine-profits•  04:00 - 05:00: Housing and Tech Hoarding•  Housing crisis: 16 million vacant homes in the U.S. versus over 600,000 homeless, as empty properties prove more profitable. •  2025 semiconductor shortage: TSMC's alleged deliberate restrictions via leaked emails to maintain pricing, with chips stockpiled while car prices soar.  (Note: Related to trade secret leaks; broader shortage context available.)https://unitedwaynca.org/blog/vacant-homes-vs-homelessness-by-city/•  05:00 - 06:30: Surplus Destruction and Corporate Mandates George uncovers patterns of destroying goods under USDA/EPA/FDA protocols lobbied by corporations.  He cites the 2024 NASS report (Appendix G, p. 847) on 2.3 billion pounds of produce destroyed to avoid “market destabilization.”  Kroger's 2019 leaked memo advocates “optimal scarcity ratios” for urgency buying. https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2023/09/20/usda-expands-efforts-prevent-and-reduce-food-loss-and-wastehttps://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Crop_Progress_&_Condition/2024/index.phphttps://www.nationofchange.org/2024/09/03/corporate-greed-exposed-kroger-admits-to-price-gouging-on-milk-and-eggs-amid-antitrust-trial/•  06:30 - 08:00: The Scarcity Playbook Step-by-step breakdown: Consolidate supply, engineer shortages (restrict, destroy surplus), profit from desperation. Blame shifts to weather or labor, not architects.•  08:00 - 10:00: Historical and Ongoing Examples•  2008 housing crisis: Banks held 3.5 million foreclosures as “shadow inventory” to keep prices high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis•  2020 toilet paper: Procter & Gamble and Georgia-Pacific (55% control) restricted distribution for 300% price surges at 64% capacity. https://www.resourcewise.com/market-watch-blog/are-we-really-running-out-of-toilet-paper-in-the-covid-crisis•  2021 lumber: Weyerhaeuser and West Fraser (40% control) quadrupled prices with underused mills. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/lumber-prices-hit-record-highs-soaring-past-year-2021-4-1030299977•  2023 prescription drugs: Wholesalers like McKesson, Cardinal, and AmerisourceBergen (95% control) restrict insulin ($2 production cost) amid shortages. https://www.mmm-online.com/home/channel/drug-shortages-in-america/•  2025 water: Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Pepsi (75% bottled water) amid contaminated public supplies. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/bottled-water-market•  10:00 - 11:30: Broader Patterns of Waste Amazon destroys 2 million unsold products yearly for scarcity pricing.  Pharma discards effective expired meds.  Energy firms flare gas for 10 million homes.  McKinsey's 2023 report recommends 15-20% below-demand inventory for margins.  Supply chain “disruptions” post-2020? Traffic normalized by Q3 2021, but prices stayed high via throttling. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethical-campaigns-boycotts/amazons-burning-approach-unsold-returned-productshttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10834166/

Unser heutiger Gast war einer der Ersten, der in unserem Podcaststudio Platz nahm. In Folge 23 (!) sprachen wir über die Kraft der Disziplin, die Magie von Soundtracks und darüber, wie man in Hollywood überhaupt ernst genommen wird, wenn man aus Nordhorn kommt. Heute, 501 Folgen später, ist er zurück. Und es ist kein Interview, sondern ein Gespräch, das wir bei uns und er in seinem Podcast HUNGRY streamen Er ist Komponist, Musiker, Unternehmer und Gründer von 2WEI Music, einem der weltweit gefragtesten Studios für Trailer-, Werbe- und Game-Musik. Von Fluch der Karibik bis Wonder Woman, von Porsche bis Pepsi, von Hamburg bis Los Angeles. Sein Team arbeitet an der Schnittstelle von Emotion, Technologie und Klang. Und das mit einem Anspruch, der weit über Awards und Plays hinausgeht: Musiker:innen Bedingungen zu geben, so dass sie von ihrer Musik leben können. In dieser gemeinsamen Jahresrückblick-Folge sprechen wir über Themen, die uns beide 2025 bewegt haben. Was bedeutet Partnerschaft in einer Welt, in der alles schneller und unpersönlicher wird? Warum ist es so wichtig, sich auch angemessen aus Partnerschaften zu verabschieden, die nicht mehr funktionieren? Wie verändert künstliche Intelligenz (kreative) Prozesse und wie begegnet man der Angst vor dem Kontrollverlust? Und was braucht es, um ein Unternehmen aufzubauen, das nicht nur erfolgreich ist, sondern auch Haltung hat? Seit über acht Jahren beschäftigen wir uns in diesem Podcast mit der Frage, wie Arbeit den Menschen stärkt, statt ihn zu schwächen. Wir haben in über 500 Episoden mit fast 700 Persönlichkeiten darüber gesprochen, was sich verändert hat und was sich noch verändern muss. Heute nehmen wir euch mit in ein Gespräch, das persönlicher ist als sonst, in dem auch Tränen fließen und das trotzdem, oder vielleicht genau deshalb, voller Erkenntnisse steckt. Ihr seid bei On the Way to New Work und bei Hungry, in einem Weihnachtsgespräch, das wir ab jetzt jedes Jahr führen wollen. Wir? Das sind der wunderbare Simon Heeger und ich, Michael Trautmann [Hier](https://linktr.ee/onthewaytonewwork) findet ihr alle Links zum Podcast und unseren aktuellen Werbepartnern

Another month, another holiday office party for the Keyblade Wielders of the Order of the Silversand where Billy the Rock Small Child asks for a Christmas story. With surprise guest stars and also Tensei from the Bard Rock Network, I guess. Find that Tensei fella here: https://bsky.app/profile/tensei.bardrockcafe.com Join Dre(He/Him/They/Them), Vir(He/Him), Stephen(He/Him/They/Them), Ash(She/Her), Kamen(Zie/Hir, She/Her), and Eddie(He/Him) as they shape their own story playing a TTRPG called Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined. Edited by Domi(She/Her) (She/Her) Intro and outro by Jay(He/Him) Art by Sheryl(She/Her) This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

It's the Command Center Podcast LIVE! Christmas Eve Special presented by Pepsi. Logan Paulsen, Santana Moss, and Fred Smoot are joined by special guests London Fletcher and Brian Mitchell...and Santa Claus!   Hosts: Logan Paulsen, Santana Moss, Fred Smoot   Guests: London Fletcher, Brian Mitchell, Santa Claus, Hater Jason   Producer: Jason Johnson   Get Your Commanders Tickets Here: https://bit.ly/3SpwKU3   Location: City Tap, Ashburn   The views and opinions expressed by our analysts and/or hosts are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Washington Commanders or any of their representatives.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you ever rode rear-facing in a station wagon or took a “fart walk” to survive the holidays… welcome home. This week, we're wrapping up 2025 by revisiting the moments that made us laugh hardest, cry a little, and feel deeply connected to you this past year. (Thank you for your voicemails and emails into the show. Our listeners are the heart of Laugh Lines and we cannot wait to keep it going in 2026!)This episode is a love letter to the Laugh Lines community. We're checking back in with some of our favorite callers and guests, including a 10-year-old inventor who reminds us why ADHD brains are magic, why using Gen Z lingo can be helpful, and the very serious debate of Diet Coke vs. Diet Pepsi. Plus, Penn shares his official “nuggets” from the year (aliens may or may not be involved) and Sam & Ann Marie pop in to close the show. Thanks for being here, thanks for listening so closely, and don't worry we will be back in January. Until then, be kind, take the walk, and drink the Diet Coke (or Pepsi, if you must.) We hope you keep laughing with us next year!We love to hear from you (and tell us what you want in 2026!) leave us a message at 323-364-3929 or write the show at podcast@theholdernessfamily.com. You can also watch our podcast on YouTube.Visit Our ShopJoin Our NewsletterFind us on SubstackFollow us on InstagramFollow us on TikTok Follow us on FacebookLaugh Lines with Kim & Penn Holderness is an evolution of The Holderness Family Podcast, which began in 2018. Kim and Penn Holderness are award-winning online content creators known for their original music, song parodies, comedy sketches, and weekly podcasts. Their videos have resulted in over two billion views and over nine million followers since 2013. Penn and Kim are also authors of the New York Times Bestselling Books, ADHD Is Awesome: A Guide To (Mostly) Thriving With ADHD and All You Can Be With ADHD. They were also winners on The Amazing Race (Season 33) on CBS. Laugh Lines is hosted and executive produced by Kim Holderness and Penn Holderness, with original music by Penn Holderness. Laugh Lines is also written and produced by Ann Marie Taepke, and edited and produced by Sam Allen. It is hosted by Acast. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After 100 years of the Coca Cola versus Pepsi soft drink war, has the battle been won, with Pepsi now 3rd on the list of the biggest selling fizzy drinks in the world?Joining Seán to discuss is Eoin Burke-Kennedy, Economics Correspondent of The Irish Times…

After 100 years of the Coca Cola versus Pepsi soft drink war, has the battle been won, with Pepsi now 3rd on the list of the biggest selling fizzy drinks in the world?Joining Seán to discuss is Eoin Burke-Kennedy, Economics Correspondent of The Irish Times…

Mike Nett, GM of Trading Cards and Memorabilia at eBay, joins Passion to Profession to share his path from childhood collecting to running the largest trading card marketplace in the world. We talk about how his experiences at Pepsi, Amazon, and PSA shaped the way he thinks about collectors, sellers, and trust at scale. Mike pulls back the curtain on how eBay makes product decisions, why sellers are the engine of the hobby, what 2025 data revealed about collector behavior, and how small experience changes can have massive impact. This conversation is about growth, perspective, and building for collectors without losing the human side of the hobby. A special thank you to eBay for sponsoring Passion to Profession. The biggest and best marketplace to buy your next favorite trading card.Get exclusive content, promote your cards, and connect with other collectors who listen to the pod today by joining the Patreon: Join Stacking Slabs Podcast Patreon[Distributed on Sunday] Sign up for the Stacking Slabs Weekly Rip Newsletter using this linkFollow Stacking Slabs: | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Tiktok ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Mike speaks with Steve Shaw from the Black Eyed Pea about their new, 9th location in Colorado: Fort Collins! Later, Mike talks about Trump's recent speech, the holiday cherry and cream Pepsi, and things women wanna hear, but never do... This and more on Hour 1 of the Mike Boyle Restaurant Show!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's no more iconic a reality franchise than The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills – which is back for its 15th season. And there is perhaps no Housewife in history that has a heftier and more prestigious CV than that of Bozoma Saint John. Boz joined the series last year off the back of a 20-year run as a marketing executive working with brands like Apple, Netflix, Uber and Pepsi and has been recognised by Forbes as the world's #1 most influential CMO. She quickly became a fan favourite for her ability to bring boardroom realness to the drama of the 90210. She joins Jack Tame to chat about authenticity, watching herself on TV, and marketing. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the Daily Compliance News. Each day, Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance brings to you compliance related stories to start your day. Sit back, enjoy a cup of morning coffee and listen in to the Daily Compliance News. All, from the Compliance Podcast Network. Each day we consider four stories from the business world, compliance, ethics, risk management, leadership or general interest for the compliance professional.  ·      Pepsi accused of jacking up prices at Walmart by FTC. (WSJ) ·      Compliance concerns with AI glasses. (Reuters) ·      TX AG sues television manufacturers for illegally collecting person data.  (KVUE) ·      Is there a right way for a CEO to quit? (FT)   The Daily Compliance News has been honored as the No. 2 in Best Regulatory Compliance Podcastscategory.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The trial of a former Market Basket CEO is about to begin. Pepsi looks to reduce prices and eliminate some products. And kratom-related products are now illegal in Ohio.

Innovation doesn't fail because companies lack ideas—it fails because leadership and culture aren't built to support change. In this episode, Paul Alex sits down with Bud Caddell, founder of NOBL (nobl.io), to break down what actually stops organizations from executing on bold ideas. Bud shares real-world lessons from working with global brands and fast-growing companies, explaining how misaligned incentives, poor leadership behaviors, and broken decision-making systems quietly kill innovation. He also reveals what leaders must do differently to build cultures where change doesn't just start—but actually sticks. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a team leader, or building from the ground up, this conversation will reshape how you think about leadership, culture, and execution. Your Network is your NETWORTH! Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024 Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNB9ivoJf7ppjuSplOAkEZw LinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024 Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:

Interview Date: September 14th, 2025Episode Summary:In this inspiring conversation, Carol Borjas Cantrell shares her remarkable evolution from a Venezuelan rhythmic gymnast to touring the world as a professional dancer and raising the next generation of talent, including her daughter Kylie Cantrell (Disney's Descendants: The Rise of Red).Carol walks listeners through her early ballet training, her scholarship to Tremaine in Los Angeles, and how she built a 30-year career dancing for icons such as Paul McCartney, Lou Bega, and Brian McKnight. She opens up about adapting to the U.S. industry, navigating agencies and visas, and the lessons that have shaped both her and her daughter's artistic paths.Throughout the episode, Carol offers practical insight on auditions, tour life, staying “camera-ready,” and balancing motherhood with a professional career. Her message to dancers is simple but powerful — prepare relentlessly, stay grounded, and do the brave thing, even when the path ahead feels uncertain.This episode is perfect for dancers, parents of young performers, and aspiring pros who want an inside look at what it takes to sustain longevity in the ever-changing dance world.Shownotes:(0:00) – Welcome & intro to Carol Borjas Cantrell's journey(3:44) – Tour credits with Paul McCartney, Brian McKnight & Lou Bega(10:51) – Early training in Venezuela & rhythmic gymnastics foundation(13:56) – Tremaine scholarship & moving to L.A. at 17(16:50) – Audition evolution: from in-person to self-tapes(21:37) – Visa journey & path to U.S. citizenship(29:32) – Tour highlights & behind-the-scenes moments(35:18) – Advice for Kylie on tour life & balance(47:42) – Teaching resilience & confidence to young performers(1:26:19) – Closing words: live your passion & stay camera-readyBiography:This Venezuelan born dancer/choreographer has over 20 years experience. She began with ballet and contemporary dance. Carol also trained in Rhythmic gymnastics for 12 years receiving numerous honors… including, five consecutive years, Venezuela's “Best Gymnast”. Once she moved to Los Angeles she began working in the industry with artists like, Paul McCartney, (World tour), Country icons Brookes and Dunn, Hip Hop legends: Will Smith, P Diddy, Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J. Brian Mc Night etc. 
She has appeared in movies like Austin Powers, Cinderella Story & more. She hosted an Entertainment Television show called “Hablemos De Cine” on Azteca America, interviewing both Spanish and American celebrities. She has done several national TV commercials including Dodge Durango with Will Ferrel, Gain Detergent, AT&T, Pepsi, Sprite and many more. In television she has danced on MTV Movie Awards, Guys Choice awards, Image Awards etc. She appeared on television series like Alias, American Idol to name a few. For the past seven years Carol is the choreographer of a Spanish TV network ( Estrella TV)  Choreographing, and appearing and some of the shows including the Spanish version of Dancing with the Stars, and Los Premios de la Radio a la musical regional Mexicana.Carol also had a special appearance, on the ABC series,"America's Got Talent.”Carol has appeared on several Warner Brothers productions for the famous series “Gilmore Girls” also Netflix shows “Fuller House”,  “Jane the Virgin” and Show Time series “Penny Dreadful” and she recently also appeared on the new prequel “Dexter”.Connect on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caroljborjas?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr  

Unmasking Hidden Sugars in 'Healthy' Drinks: Leyla Muedin, a registered dietitian nutritionist, examines the surprising amounts of sugar found in commonly perceived 'healthy' drinks. She discusses how beverages like energy drinks, fruit smoothies, and chai lattes can exceed the daily recommended sugar intake, based on a study by Ben's Natural Health. Leyla warns that even health-focused products and homemade drinks can contain high sugar levels, which can impact weight, blood sugar levels, and overall health. She emphasizes the importance of being an 'ingredient sleuth' and making informed choices. 

“A.I.”, False Dichotomy, and the Illusion of Choice: A.K.A. “Coke, or Pepsi?” 67

America's seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker fits with the stated goals in its new national-security strategy: untrammelled hemispheric dominance. How much of the document is polemic and how much will become policy? The long-run costs of the work-from-home revolution are becoming apparent in many American cities. And the one region where Pepsi is the cola of choice.Get a world of insights by subscribing to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

America's seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker fits with the stated goals in its new national-security strategy: untrammelled hemispheric dominance. How much of the document is polemic and how much will become policy? The long-run costs of the work-from-home revolution are becoming apparent in many American cities. And the one region where Pepsi is the cola of choice.Get a world of insights by subscribing to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're talking cool scars, and no one has a cooler scar than KFI tech director The Foosh, following his dangerous car accident last August that nearly resulted in his arm being amputated. Video game chain store GameStop had a national Trade Anything Day, in which customers could bring in anything smaller than a breadbox and trade it for $5 in store credit. There were more than 80,000 trade-ins. Remember the cola wars of the 1970s and ’80s? It was Coca Cola vs. Pepsi, and Coke nearly got trounced when the brand changed its recipe to release New Coke in the mid-’80s. Now, a 120-year-old cola is making a comeback. That sweet drink? Royal Crown Cola! Secretary of State Marco Rubio is under pressure to admit we’ve made UFO contact. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Good Morning BT with Bo Thompson and Beth Troutman | Wednesday, December 10th, 2025. 6:05 Beth’s Song of the Day | Last day on 99.3 FM, moving to 107.9 FM tomorrow 6:20 Guest: Theresa Payton (Cyber Security Expert) - Protecting your Biometrics | Warner Bros. bidding war 6:35 Pres. Trump rally in PA 6:50 RAM Biz Update; Pepsi Co. to cut nearly 20% of product line in 2026 7:05 Text Line backs Beth's Pepsi take 7:20 Paper checks going extinct 7:35 WBT text line weighs in on writing checks 7:50 Winterble Wednesday: Crossing the Streams with Brett Winterble 8:05 WBT text line tries to convince Bo to trust mobile check deposits 8:20 WBT text line tries to convince Bo to trust mobile check deposits cont. 8:35 Guest: Scott Huffmon (Poli Sci Professor at Winthrop) - Pres. Trump comments at PA rally 8:50 Scott Huffmon cont. - Nancy Mace on CNN 9:05 More on Nancy Mace's appearance on CNN 9:20 107.7 FM WBT debuts tomorrow | Colts sign 44 year old Phillip Rivers 9:50 Phillip Rivers safe-for-work trash talkSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEC Announces It Will Not Respond to Most No-Action Requests for Rule 14a-8 Shareholder Proposals.Government shutdown - the staff claimed they COULDN'T respond because after the shutdown, they had too much other work to do: “current resource and timing considerations following the lengthy government shutdown and the large volume of registration statements and other filings requiring prompt staff attention.” It just happens to coincide with Atkins saying there shouldn't be shareholder proposals, that's just a coincidence.John Cheveddan and Jim McRitchie - let's be honest, if it weren't for Cheveddan and McRitchie over 3 decades, we'd have less shareholder rights, and companies would not be such big whiners about “woke” shareholder proposals. Guys, you ruined it for all of us with your attention to democracy.Woke ESG shareholders like As You Sow, Arjuna, Trillium, and nuns - if we're honest, the nuns and SRI crowd might have been the straw, right? I mean they're putting in proposals that MAKE Exxon sue them! How dare they ask for carbon scope 3 emissions data!Antiwoke shareholders like NCPPR and Jesus - excluding Cheveddan/McRitchie, the highest volume of shareholder proposals have actually been the ANTI-woke filers, asking for things like a report on how companies will stop funding trans conversions (or one actual one where they asked about the reputational risk of NOT supporting un-trans-ing). Some of the proposals are so comically stupid, but the companies have to respond using third party lawyers and do the whole thing - maybe National Legal whatever center for whatever is the REAL straw?ISS and Glass Lewis - this was like 90% of what they did, since they certainly didn't suggest voting against any directors unless an activist was involved. So when Ramaswamy and Musk and DeSantis and Texas declared proxy advisors woke activists, it was hard to deny since they didn't do any work to vote out directors - just offer customers whatever voting pablum they wantedBlackRock and investors who never voted anywayOther - Atkins and Manhattan institute - lobbyists, administrationPepsi to cut product offering nearly 20% in deal with $4 billion activist ElliottPepsiCo said it also plans to accelerate the introduction of new offerings with simpler and more functional ingredients, including Doritos Protein and Simply NKD Cheetos and Doritos, which contain no artificial flavors or colors. The company also recently introduced a prebiotic version of its signature cola..WHO DO YOU BLAME?Pepsi CEO Ramon Laguarta - CEO since 2018, 21% influence, 43% connected to the board (so they're basically all known entities), has overseen basically zero shareholder value increase in the last 5 years, overall .513 TSR batting average - what has he been doing? Did he put a sign on the door begging an activist to come hang?Activist Elliott Management - Paul Singer is notorious as a real foodie… wait, no, sorry, he's known as a “vulture capitalist” who helped oust Jack Dorsey from Twitter because he didn't want him to hang in Africa, but was happy to have Elon Musk (who has five jobs) take it over. In 2021, he did take a 3% stake in Ahold Delhaize, a grocery store owner, so he's probably had a protein shake sprinkled on Doritos before?Pepsi's board - first of all, it's 14 people, which is like 7 people too many. Second - 4 finance types? Two pharma/med types? There are more people who know medicine than food - only ONE agribusiness repped on the board (Bunge) with the only other food production from Pepsi or ex-Pepsi execs? There are three directors on the nom committee with 10+ years on the board, and the other two have.. 9 years. Vasella has been there 23 years - time for some turnover.Roberto P. Martínez (International Chief Commercial Officer and CEO of New Revenue Streams) and Tara Glasgow (Executive Vice President and Chief Science Officer) - someone needs to be held responsible for Doritos Protein and Simply NKD CheetosJimmy Kimmel signs ABC extension through 2027Most of Kimmel's recent renewals have been multiyear extensions. There was no immediate word on whose choice it was to extend his current contract by one year.WHO DO YOU BLAME?Bob Iger - he yanked Kimmel to kiss Brendan Carr's ass and the affiliates, then put him back on when subscribers cancelled, then convinced affiliates to re-air, all because Kimmel said conservatives really didn't want Kirk's killer to be conservative? Now Kimmel is EXTENDED? It has to be the dumbest series of events since “Don't Say Gay” bill in Chapek's era, right?Disney's board - these are well known directors in the bag for Iger, and Iger would not even be CEO again if not for them. Susan Arnold, who at the time had more influence on the board than Iger, was chair of the nominating committee, had Mel Lagomasino and Derica Rice on with her, all went with Iger's hand picked choice of Bob Chapek. Arnold left the board, but both Rice and Lagomasino stayed behind to help choose… Bob Iger to return? Then brought on James Gorman, who hand picked HIS successor, to lead succession with Bob Iger again? Is anyone doing a job on this board? ISS - when Nelson Peltz took his Ike Perlmutter borrowed stake in Disney in 2024, ISS sided with Peltz and suggested voting out Mel Lagamasino because she was the longest tenured director and “responsible” for Disney's failed succession. In 2025, after Peltz lost and no one cared, ISS backed Lagamasino. With analysis like that, it's no wonder Disney can bow to the Trump Administration since there's no way ISS will actually suggest changing the board unless an old racist takes a stake.Brendan Carr - is this just a finger in the eye of Carr, the FCC, and the angry conservative affiliates by Iger? Is this Disney's way of being woke now?Other - Baby Doll Dixon, Jimmy Kimmel's agent - should have gotten him a 10 year deal with a player option out. Optically way better, gets bought out if they fire him.Trump says Netflix, WBD deal could be 'problem' as son-in-law Kushner backs Paramount bid“I'll be involved in that decision too,” Trump said days after Netflix agreed to buy WBD's film studiosParamount revealed in a regulatory filing that its hostile bid for WBD bid is being backed by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is a former White House advisor - and every Middle Eastern sovereign fund, as well as over $40bn by Larry Ellison (and David Ellison committed to spend more in a text to co-CEO Ted SarandosWHO DO YOU BLAME?Larry Ellison - without daddy's $40bn (and more - what's $40bn when you have $269bn in net worth and own an island in Hawaii), there is no deal - literally no deal, this is pure nepo - THE OLIGARCHYMiddle Eastern sovereign funds - I mean, they're involved in EVERY major deal of a conservative figure (Musk/Twitter, Musk/Grok, Ellison/Paramount, Ellison/TikTok, Trump/Air Force One) and are backing another consolidation. Is this the greatest capitalist manipulation ever? Dictator capitalism?Robby Starbuck - he claimed “victory” in the Skydance acquisition terms for killing DEI at Paramount, used the opportunity to lick the boot of Brendan Carr, who is almost guaranteed to investigate Netflix given their wokeness. Somehow it's all Robby Starbuck's fault, right?WBD chair Sam Di Piazza - a near lifer at PwC as an accountant until he want to Citi as an i-banker for a stint, served on AT&T's board… an ACCOUNTANT is running the show! No one has heard of him, he's not in any of the news, but ostensibly he (and the board) approved the Netflix deal after dealing with Baby Ellison. The board is the only group that gets all the bids, compares them, and ultimately decides what to agree on and send to shareholders. If they chose Baby Ellison to avoid him throwing a temper tantrum to daddy, there's no hostile takeover and conservatives can rejoice in owning all of media, right? Snap appoints Arlo CEO Matthew McRae to board of directorsPrior to his current role as CEO of Arlo Technologies, which he has held since August 2018, McRae served as Senior Vice President of Strategy at NETGEAR and as Chief Technology Officer at VIZIO for over seven yearsWHO DO YOU BLAME?Evan Spiegel - he owns 53.1% of voting power - there is no one else to blameRobert Murphy - he owns 46.4% of voting power - what if he doesn't like Matt McRae? Do they resort to a thumb war? Who are we kidding, it's still Evan Spiegel's faultInvestors, who, for whatever reason, have OK'ed the idea of dual class shares such that Spiegel and Murphy own 99.5% of the voting power and less than 8% of the economic interest - while Fidelity owns 14.6% of the shares that control 0% of the overall vote. It was banned from index inclusion because the shares had NO voting rights - but somehow Meta is ALLOWED on every index because you have voting rights even if you can NEVER EVER WIN as Zuck owns control. What's the fucking difference??Worst CEOs of the Year Evan Spiegel of Snap

Gary & Shannon fire up #WhatsHappening with the day’s biggest headlines: President Trump kicks off his 2026 midterm blitz, Pepsi quietly purges fan-favorite products, and Coke continues to dominate the soda battlefield. Plus, the Colts make it official: Grandpa Phillip Rivers is back under center.Then it’s #TerrorInTheSkies, where international flight attendants reveal the most bizarre and frequently asked questions they get mid-air… and Gary insists there’s a strict three-hour conversation limit before flight attendant detailed interactions become more necessary. For #TrueCrimeTuesday, the NY Post’s wild exclusive takes center stage: a nepo-baby accused of killing his girlfriend and immediately calling Dad to lawyer up. The hour wraps with another jaw-dropper, the kayaker who faked his own death to escape his marriage, only to resurface, get caught, and now… walk free.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Good grief! It's hard to believe it's been 60 years since “A Charlie Brown Christmas” first aired.    Yet the story of a round-headed young boy disheartened by the commercialization of Christmas remains a beloved holiday classic to this day.    How did the Coke vs. Pepsi advertising wars help prompt “A Charlie Brown Christmas”? What challenges did the team face in translating Charles Schulz's “Peanuts” from comic strip to animated film for the first time? In what ways did this Christmas special differ from the typical TV shows of the 1960s? And why did the TV execs– and even some of the production team– fear “A Charlie Brown Christmas” would flop? We discuss all this and more!   If picturing Linus's monologue and Charlie Brown with his humble tree still adds a little meaning to YOUR Christmas, this is the episode for you!    Thank you to Sara Taylor for her top-of-the-episode shout-out!    How to support Scandal Water: Rate, review, and subscribe! Follow the show on your favorite app or Scandal Water Podcast YouTube channel.  Send your shoutouts to scandalwaterpodcast@gmail.com. Become a member on patreon.com/ScandalWaterPodcast or buymeacoffee.com/scandalwaterpod – which will also grant you access to fabulous bonus content! #charliebrownchristmas #charliebrown #snoopy #christmas #peanuts #peanutsgang #charliebrownchristmastree #woodstock #snoopychristmas #merrychristmas #christmastree #christmasdecor #snoopydog #acharliebrownchristmas #vinceguaraldi #peanutsmovie #charliebrowntree #snoopylove #linus #snoopyshirt #snoopyforever #ScandalWaterPodcast #Podcast #holidayanniversaries #December

Dave and Joe catch up after the holidays, trade stories about Thanksgiving, learning to drink coffee, and movie memories (Jurassic Park). They dig into local and viral oddities — a wedding photographer scam, a stolen shopping cart, Pepsi's Sierra Mist rename, and a bizarre 1923 teacher contract full of archaic rules. The episode rounds out with absurd news clips: a drunk raccoon breaks into a liquor store, a bald eagle drops a cat onto a windshield, a woman found alive before cremation, and a missing cruise passenger. Short, funny, and strange — a classic Gen Extra mix.

Show Notes Episode 515: Sodas In Spaaaaace! This week Host Dave Bledsoe got liquored up on orange flavored Metamucil and vodka and got kicked out of a retirement village bingo game. (Again) On the show this week we head back to 1985 when the Cola Wars took off for low orbit because Coke and Pepsi had money to burn. Along the way we learn that Dave never stood a chance at NASA. (They didn't make space suits in 5XL) Then we dive right into what the first astronauts ate in space. (Goo, they ate goo.) Then we head back down to the Earth where a Coca Cola executive had an idea that was out of this world, and how it turned into yet another vicious skirmish in the long running and increasingly bitter “cola wars”. We learn how Coke spent a quarter of a million dollars and Pepsi opened their medicine cabinet.  Finally we discover why sodas crashed and burned like a solid rocket booster in chilly weather.  (Too soon?). Our Sponsor this week is Tap Water, if you're thirsty get some.  We open the show with Coke in space and close with astronaut Chris Hadfield singing out sitting in a tin can. Show Theme: Hypnostate Prelude to Common Sense The Show on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/whatthehellpodcast.bsky.social The Show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whatthehellpodcast/ The Show on Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjxP5ywpZ-O7qu_MFkLXQUQ The Show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatthehellwereyouthinkingpod/ Our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/kHmmrjptrq Our Website: https://www.whatthehellpodcast.com Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/Whatthehellpodcast The Show Line: 347 687 9601 Closing Music: https://youtu.be/AfEng898uRA?si=JGyjlv-GQ_D-4Q4Z Buy Our Stuff: https://www.seltzerkings.com/shop Citations Needed: Fallout from the Unauthorized Gemini III Space Sandwich https://www.nasa.gov/history/fallout-from-the-unauthorized-gemini-iii-space-sandwich/ How would fizzy drinks behave in space? https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-would-fizzy-drinks-behave-in-space The First Soda in Space: When NASA Got Caught Up in the Cola Wars https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/science/coke-pepsi-nasa-space-shuttle.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6E8.TPFd.7B7gLuAuHrDA&smid=url-share 'Space cola wars' at 35: When Coca-Cola, Pepsi tested soda in space https://www.collectspace.com/news/news-081120a-space-cola-wars-35-years.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Episode 866 of The LOTS Project Morning Show, Brian talks through a challenging early December: slow cabin framing progress, nonstop cold rain, the mental grind of gloomy weather, and the physical grind of hauling firewood out by hand because the easement road is still impassable.We also dive into weekend Netflix picks — including Pepsi, Where's My Jet?, Kings of Tupelo, and the explosive Diddy documentary — plus the weekly Bitcoin guessing game and how to stack even more sats using the Fold debit card during the Blockstream Jade 21% holiday sale.It's a packed, honest, filter-free episode. Grab a coffee and come along.Sponsors & PartnersSignature Solar: https://signaturesolar.com/?ref=LOTSBlockstream Jade & JadePlus (21% off + extra 10% w/ code TheLOTSProject):https://store.blockstream.com/?code=TheLOTSProjectFold — Earn Bitcoin Back: https://use.foldapp.com/r/FANEWETXComfreyRoots.com: https://comfreyroots.comFood Forest Farms Coffee: https://foodforestfarms.comAffiliate DisclosureThis episode contains affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show.

Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. TranscriptGood morning. Sounds like a couple of you might have what I got the other week. So I apologize if at some point I have to cough or drink out of the water here this morning. But as has already been mentioned this morning, we are in the middle of our Give series. And so every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we as a church take the opportunity, while our culture is pressing in on us with a message of consumerism, to look to the scriptures. What does Jesus have to say about what is an appropriate way for us to approach our money and our stuff? And at the center of it, at the heart of it, is giving that he gave himself. And so we want to look at what it looks like to be generous people. And as a part of our Give series, we have what we call a Give project. And so every year we have an opportunity to partner with some organization, mission opportunity, ministry, something, somewhere, someone in need that we can help fill the gap in as a church by giving of our money, giving of our time, resources, whatever it might be that year.This year we've been focusing on international mission work. And last week Chet got to introduce phase one of our project. So if you weren't here, I'm going to briefly explain what we're doing in this phase one. We are partnering with mission organization based in Mexico called elam. And they specifically help partner with local churches in Mexico to share the gospel to people who don't know. And one of the ways that we specifically get to partner with them is that several times a year they do short term mission trips, medical mission trips into indigenous communities in Mexico where they go in trying to help meet physical needs of people, whether it be that they have a hard time seeing, hard time hearing, so some ailment in their body, and that is a doorway by which they use to partner with local churches to share the deeper spiritual need of the gospel of Jesus. And so we're specifically helping raise funds for that avenue of ministry that they do.We're looking to provide for them an enclosed trailer so that they can transport materials. And then we're also looking to fill that trailer with all sorts of medical equipment for them as they do this work. So I'm excited that thus far we have been able to raise in the last week a little over $7,000 toward this project, which is exciting. Yes, very exciting. And so right now, if for some reason this all had to stop, we'd at least be able to at this point be able to purchase them a closed in trailer where they could transport their supplies. But we're hoping we get to continue and we get to continue to raise funds. We're looking for another $15,000 for this part of our project where we get to fill this trailer full of medical equipment to help them, equip them for the work that they are doing. And then Chet's going to come back at the end of this morning and introduce what phase two of this project is. And this is really a great opportunity for us as a church to give toward the mission that God is doing in these other mission organizations. And not only is it a good opportunity for us to give to them and in this participation of giving, this is a good opportunity for us to have our own hearts drawn in toward the mission that God is working across the world.Today that's what we're going to be looking at in this passage. Jesus is going to be specifically addressing the orientation of our own hearts toward our stuff and our money. So let me pray and then we'll dive into the text. Father, we thank you that you first gave to us. And so we pray that this season, as we are pressed in to think that we should take and that it's about us, that we would consider others as more important than ourselves, like you did, and that we would be people of generosity. This morning, would your word speak to us? Would it inform what it looks like for us to be followers of Jesus? In his name we pray. Amen.If you will, you can turn in your Bible to Matthew chapter six. We're going to be in verses 19 to 24. If you don't have a Bible with you, you can use one of the blue ones in the chair, chair in front of you. That's going to be on page 473 as you're turning there to give a brief context to the passage that we're going to be in. Because we're just jumping right into the middle of the book. We are in the Gospel of Matthew. So this is an account of the life of Jesus, his ministry on earth. And specifically in chapter six, we're in the section that is commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. So this is the longest chunk of Jesus's teaching that we have in a row back to back, where he's sitting down and teaching his disciples. Specifically in the Gospel of Matthew, the main theme is the kingdom of God coming. And so he has a whole scope, a broad scope of topics that he's teaching on. What does it look like for the kingdom to be coming here and now? And if you actually look inside of those three chapters, 5, 6, and 7. And look at all the individual things he talks about. There's one that stands out that he talks about more than any other, and that is specifically our relationship to money, our relationship to our material possessions. And so that's what we're going to be looking at.In this passage today, Jesus is going to be taking us on a journey from our outward experience with the material things with money, down into the inner experience with money and stuff. And he's going to do so in sets of two. So I'm going to cheat. I'm going to tell you exactly what we're going to talk about all morning, and then we'll get to go in more detail. So first, Jesus is going to teach on two different treasures. Two different treasures. Then he's going to teach us about two different eyes. Eyes. And then he's going to teach us about two different masters. And that's where we will finish out this morning. But first we'll start with two treasures. So let's read starting in verse 19, Jesus says,> "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19–21, ESV)So Jesus starts out by comparing laying up treasures on earth with laying up treasures in heaven. Don't do the one, do the other. So let's take this one at a time to start off. First, Jesus says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Now, what exactly does he mean by this? On the surface level, I think we can understand the basic principle of don't store up too much stuff on earth here. But how much is too much? Can I store a little bit? Dave Ramsey told me that I should save $1,000, then I should pay off all my debt, and then have three to six months worth of an emergency fund. Can I have an emergency fund? Is that something I should have? We don't even have to go outside the text for this question to come up. In Proverbs 21:20> "Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours it." (Proverbs 21:20, ESV)So it's wise to have money, to have treasure stored up. But I thought that's what we're not supposed to do. Well, before we get too confused here, let's take a step back, look at the full context of what Jesus is teaching here. Because I definitely don't think the Bible is contradicting itself. I just think that Jesus is after something different than what this proverb is. So let's go back to the text, read it a little bit more in its full context. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal.The other month, my wife and I got to go to the State Museum, the South Carolina State Museum we were actually invited to. It was. Apparently you can rent like the lobby space. So it was a private event after hours. It was a wedding ceremony, reception that was being held afterwards. So we're there, we're having a great time, and then we find out like halfway through this event that apparently when you rent the space, you also get access, or at least when they rented the space, we had access to all the different floors of all the different exhibits. So we thought, perfect, we're here, let's take advantage of it. So there was like nobody in the museum. We're just walking around, having a great time. And on that first floor, when you walk in, you know, you got that big shark that's hanging down from the ceiling and you get to walk through. It's like the prehistoric exhibits and stuff. And we come across this one that I'm looking at, and it's called a fossil, a petrified fossil. I'm like, wow, that's pretty cool. It's impressive. It's been a while since I've been in the State Museum. And then I'm looking at it, it's not like in any enclosing, it's just out in the open. So I start reading in more detail. This is a replica of a. Immediately as soon as I read that, my care for this went from really to almost not. I could have seen a picture on the Internet of a replica of a petrified fossil. And so we move on from that. We're going through the different floors. Eventually we're on that top floor, which is like the Revolutionary War and Civil War memorabilia, and they got the Industrial Revolution stuff. And right in the middle of all that, there's this like 15 foot by 15 foot structure, which is apparently an old house that used to be used as like a schoolhouse where they would have gathered. And walking in, I'm walking on the floorboards, I start to read the description. This is the real deal. Apparently the boards that I'm standing on, the ceiling that I can touch, not just because I'm tall, because it's also short ceiling. Everything about this structure, it was the real deal. It was actual history from back in that time. Now, I'm assuming they probably deconstructed it and put up pieces in and put it back together. But this is really it. It's like from the 1800s, this old building. And I'm amazed being able to stand in here. I'm just taking it all in, soaking it all in. And the reason that it was so exciting is because it's not supposed to be there. That's not our experience with stuff. When was the last time you came across something from the 1800s? I don't know. You can go to the State Museum, you can see that. But this is the reason why we would even have something like a museum, that we would get excited about walking around and looking at old things. But because old things aren't supposed to last, that's not our experience. Things fade, they break. It's why we have to have replicas of fossils, because they're not around. That's our experience. So Jesus is saying, don't lay up treasures on earth because moth and rust destroy. Because stuff, it crumbles and falls apart.He continues on. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. Now notice here that Jesus isn't condemning laying up treasure. He's just telling us where there's a better place to put it. Now, what would you say if I told you that there is a house that has zero maintenance issues and zero maintenance fees? Can you imagine that maybe. No. I get one head nod back and think, no, it doesn't exist. If you could maybe envision it, it's possible that you have in your head that you don't have the maintenance issues or fees, but somebody else does and you just get to live there. Because that's not what we're used to. Stuff breaks, it falls apart. But if we take Jesus at his word for what he says, do you know that there's a place in which the things that you and I possess, they never fade? It never breaks. Did you know that there's a place where your check engine light never comes on again? There is a place where your H Vac unit doesn't make that weird clunking noise every time it turns on? There's a place where your phone screen no longer has a crack running right through the middle of it? Or that you know that Tupperware that you've got positioned just right under that leaky faucet underneath the little shutoff valve? Yeah. You know that Tupperware. You know it's there. That valve Never leaks again. That's a real place. And if you start to really think about it and consider it, I want to be there. Don't you want to be there? What would it look like for us to invest in that kind of place? Because Jesus says that kind of treasure, it never fades. And it's found in heaven is what he says.It's found in the place where the glory and the presence of God is perfectly and fully manifested. And the story of the Scriptures is that that place, that heaven at the end of this time will come to be with us here on this earth, that that perfect place where the glory of God is perfectly displayed, where things don't ever break, things don't ever end, it comes to be with us. And Jesus says that he's going there to prepare a place for us. There's a seat at the table of the feast of the wedding lamb. The imagery at the end of the Book of Revelation, it's filled with beauty and wonder. The streets lined with gold walls and buildings held up by foundations of precious stone. A perfectly clear river running through the city, with a tree of life ever producing perfect fruit. Treasure abounds. Everlasting treasure abounds there in that place.Now, laying up treasure in that place, I think it looks a little bit different than what you and I are used to because we're very physical, tangible, immediate response type people, right? And so it's easy for us to look at, you know, like numbers on a bank account screen. And that feels tangible as like a storing up of treasure. It's easy to think about the house or the car, the toys and the trinkets, because it's immediate feedback stuff. We invested our time, our energy, our money, whatever it is, and immediately there's something there. But when it comes up, when it comes to laying up treasures and heaven, Jesus says things like this in the Gospel of Luke, chapter six. He says,> "Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets." (Luke 6:22–23, ESV)A little later he says,> "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil." (Luke 6:35, ESV)A little later in the Gospel are in, Jesus says this, and whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water, because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.> "And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward." (Matthew 10:42, ESV)Or in the Sermon on the Mount itself, chapter six, a little bit earlier than where we're reading. Jesus says,> "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." (Matthew 6:3–4, ESV)So this isn't quite as simple as hitting the Buy now button on the Amazon app and two days later a package arriving at your door. Maybe it looks a little bit something like this. Maybe you don't get invited to go hang out with the co workers at dinner after work because you've been labeled as one of those weird Christians. You've talked about Jesus one too many times for their comfort. Maybe it looks like you know that next door neighbor of yours that seems to hide out in the bushes with binoculars and wait until there's one too many leaves in your yard to report you to the hoa. Well, one week, you know, you notice his car has been in the same spot in the driveway for longer than usual and the leaves are piling up. So this is finally your opportunity to go and blow his leaves into your yard so that you can pick them up. Or maybe it looks like something as simple as carrying some cold water bottles in your car on a hot summer South Carolina day so you can hand out to the beggar at the side of the intersection. Maybe it looks something like someone in your group is talking about how money's tight and the grocery budget is really slimming up and they don't know exactly how it's going to work this month. And so the rest of you talk and deliberate. You get some money together, a couple, you go down to Walmart and you fill up bags with food and you go take it to their house and drop it off. This is the kind of stuff that it looks like to participate in storing up treasures in heaven. I'm sure we can continue on with different types of examples, but what Jesus tells us as well in this, if you were paying attention to these different references, Jesus says that the Father sees it all, the Father sees it, and in his justice will reward every effort that is made.Now at the end of this comparison between the storing of treasures on earth, storing treasures on heaven, Jesus gives us the reason why. In verse 21 he says this. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Very basic principle. You care about the things that you put money into. I'll let you in on a little secret. I don't know if you knew this, but before six years ago I never cared about the property at 327 Piney Grove Road, which, if you don't know me, that's my home address. You can send mail there or something. I'll accept a Christmas card. Never cared. So pre2019, didn't ever think about it. Now, here's the rest of the secret. For the last six years, I have cared more about the property at 327 Piney Grove Road than any other property in my life. Because for the past six years, my wife and I have lived there. We've invested our time, our resources into making a home for us and our family and people to come over. But it's just how it works. Wherever we put our money, wherever we put our resources, our time, that's what we care about. We start to be drawn into that thing. Maybe we never cared about it before, it's just a thing, but we started investing our money, our time. All of a sudden, our heart is drawn there. In other words, Jesus is telling us, don't store up treasures on earth, not just because it doesn't last. That's an important thing to understand. It's because when we start storing up treasure here in this place, where does our heart go? Our heart starts to be drawn to this temporary space. But if we start to invest, if we start to store up treasures in heaven, where does our heart go? Our heart goes to that eternal kingdom. Our heart begins to care about, be drawn toward the Father, toward his work, toward his glory. That's what we care about when we start to do that.So this brings us all back to that confusion where we started off. Here, Jesus says, don't store up treasures on earth. The proverb we read said, the wise man has it there. But remember that Jesus is after something else. That proverb, it's. It's teaching us about practical wisdom, of, you know, having a budget and being good stewards of the things we have. But Jesus, he's turning us in a different direction. He's focusing on the heart. So I think that when we ask the question, how much is too much? We've just asked the wrong question. And not just that, but actually if we ask that question, which I think we all have, if we've come across this, it exposes our heart that we don't know what Jesus is talking about. If that's our question, how much is too much? So I think rather the better question is, how can I store as much treasure as possible in the eternal kingdom? I think that's the better question. How can I store as much treasure as possible in the eternal kingdom? Because it's what Matters, it's what lasts. So when we're asking that first question, we've got our eyes in the wrong place. And that's why Jesus doesn't stop there, he continues on. So he's going to move on from talking about two treasures to now talking about two different eyes.Verse 22.> "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" (Matthew 6:22–23, ESV)So we've got a healthy eye and we've got a bad eye. Now I'll be honest with you, this illustration throws me for a loop just about every time that I come across and read it because I get stuck like envisioning a lamp in place of somebody's eyes on a face. And it's just a weird image and it throws me off and I get all tangled up. But I think it's actually much simpler than that when we slow down when we read it. And very basic principle here that we all understand. A lamp gives light. And so a lamp that's working well provides light. A lamp that doesn't work, no light, it's just darkness, you know. I help with our student ministry to middle and high school students. And so we have student nights during the fall and spring semester. We meet here in the building and we always play some kind of game. I like to have something fun and exciting put together and I'm always trying to figure out what's the game that they like most to play. Over the years I found they really love to play hide and seek. It's one of their favorite games. However, they do not want to play that in August because in August at 5:36 o', clock, the sun is still about 3/4 in the sky and this whole place is lit up. And it's not very challenging to hide or to seek. But November comes, the time changes. The sun at 5:36 o' clock is already down. It's dark everywhere in here. We turn the lights off, we have appropriate safety measures, boundaries, and the leaders spread out and the kids get to go and they get to hide. And now it's challenging because now you can't see there's no lamp that's giving off light to participate. So this is a basic principle that we understand about light and darkness being able to navigate this space.So if we hold on to that idea and then we also. There's one other thing that I think is helpful at Least it's helpful for me when reading this verse. Reading this message that Jesus is saying is substituting in the definition for the word I. And so the definition that I think Jesus has in mind when he says the word I is how you view your stuff and money. So in other words, it would read like this. Now, what's about to be up on the screen in parentheses, that's my own words, not the words of Scripture, but you can track with me here. So if Jesus were to say it this way with the definition instead of the word, it would read something like this. How you view your stuff in money is the lamp of the body. So if the way you view your stuff and money is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if the way you view your stuff and money is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? So our view of our stuff and our money, it shines a light into our inner being. At least it has the opportunity to shine a light into our inner being. Because if we have a healthy approach to our stuff and our money, it exposes that we have light. Or in other words, remember what we just talked about earlier, that we can see, we can navigate, we understand the world as it is, and we can appropriately engage with things. And more importantly, we can appropriately engage with people because we have a healthy approach and understanding of what this stuff is. But if we have an unhealthy view of our money and of our possessions, then it's darkness. All of a sudden, it becomes challenging to navigate this space that we live in. All of a sudden, it becomes challenging to relate to people because we don't have an appropriate understanding of what this stuff is, what money is.Now, I think a fair question to ask would be, what is a healthy or an unhealthy view of our stuff and our money? That's an appropriate question that flows out of this. Now, unfortunately, we don't have the time to dive the full depths of that question, and Scripture has much to say on it. So I think we would be wise to consider that question in our own hearts and then see what the Scripture teaches. But we can at the very least right now refer back to what we have already just labored to understand because Jesus has been teaching on this idea. A good starting point of having a healthy view of our money and our stuff is knowing that it's temporary. It's temporary. It's not all that it's cracked up to be, especially compared to the worth that awaits us in the eternal kingdom. I think that when we start to see our stuff and our money as just dust that's packaged in a neat little form for a little while, then our perspective on it starts to change. Those grandiose promises that wealth and riches make, they start to be exposed as lies.And that leads us to our final set. We're going to see what truly is at stake here. This is where the true issue lies in two masters. Jesus finishes out with this in verse 24.> "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." (Matthew 6:24, ESV)If you work for Apple, then you sign a non compete, which means that you can at the same time also work for Microsoft, or if you work for Coca Cola, at least maybe high enough up in the ranks, you also would sign a non compete, which means at the same time you can't work at Pepsi. Basic understanding, they're in competition with each other as businesses. Jesus saying here that you can't live for God and also live for money. They're in competition, they're exclusive. You sign a non compete. This is what we mean when we talk about here being gospel centered. We don't talk about having our little Jesus stuff on Sunday morning and Wednesday night. And for the super spiritual 15 minutes in the morning, no, Jesus takes over it all.Now here's the bigger issue with what Jesus just said. Because Jesus just said that you and I, we are servants and we have one of two masters. Either the Lord is our master and we serve him, or money is our master and we serve it. I think our American skin crawls when we hear that we don't have a master. No one tells me what to do. Well, Jesus has a different take. It's not a question of whether or not you will serve. It's simply a question of whom will you serve. And outside of Jesus, you and I don't have have a choice. Outside of Jesus, you and I are enslaved to money. It owns us. Just ask yourself these types of questions here. Do a little thought exercise. Outside of Jesus. So think before your life was surrendered to him, or maybe even some. When your life was, what was your drive? What woke you up in the morning? Why'd you set the alarm? What orients your schedule? Why do you live in that location? Why did you study at that college? Why did you take that job position? You think on these types of questions, you might start to see a pattern. Well, I Set my alarm for that time because I have to wake up to be a work and I have to be to work because I have to make money. And I moved here to this area because, well, there was a job, it was pretty good job, pretty good money. Well, I moved, I moved here because, I work remote and I was living in a big city where cost of living was extreme. And I came here, Columbia, you know, it's kind of still up and coming, so it's kind of cheaper to live here, but still got good amenities, you know, that's why I live here. Well, I studied at that college, I took out some loans to go to that college because I was convinced that it would pay off and I'd be able to make some money. We're enslaved to owns us. It works us and it grinds us until we're just shells of people. And the worst part is that it tricks us. It makes promises. And what we thought was going to be our deliverance from the guilt within and from the suffering imposed on us, it turns out to be the very force that holds us in captivity.And if this morning that is what you feel like, you feel stuck under the compulsory rat race that we call the American dream, let me tell you that more isn't enough. It never satisfies. You can't have enough money in your bank account. You can't have a nice enough house, you can't drive a nice enough car, you can't have enough toys and trinkets to satisfy what is within you. It's a bottomless pit that just keeps on going. And if this morning you're prone to self righteousness, let me also tell you that you can't give enough to deal with that guilt within you. Because only Jesus is enough. Only at the cross of Christ is the guilt for sin actually paid for. Atonement is only found there. And when we close this morning, the news doesn't stop there. At the cross, Jesus rose from the grave. He rose in power and paved a way for you and I to live inside of new resurrection life. And this life, it's not theoretical. It's not just ideas that you and I talk about on a Sunday morning or on a Wednesday night when we get together. It's real power to live.Do you know that you've been set free by Jesus for money? It no longer owns you. It is no longer your master. Jesus is. So as a church, we're going to participate in storing up treasure in the eternal kingdom because we see this stuff for what it is, just temporary Dust and a neat little form that fades away. But there's a place where the treasure abounds eternal. And that as we give to that, our hearts are drawn into him and his work. And so as a church, we're going to be people that give our money away. We're going to give and we're going to give and we're going to give. We're going to give to things like this give project to international mission work. And our hearts going to be spurred and drawn on towards that king kingdom work. We're going to be people that use our homes as places of rest for the weary and the broken, not as places where we can put up walls to block out those types of people. We're going to be a church that lend out our cars to people who need transportation because we can be inconvenienced. It's just temporary. We're going to be people that give food to the hungry. We're going to give shelter and care to the orphan and the widow. And we're going to give more and we're going to give more and we're going to give more. And we're going to ask the question, how much treasure can I store up in that eternal kingdom? Because that's what matters. That's what's eternal. It's not temporary. It doesn't just come and fade. It's forever. And most importantly, because when we belong to Jesus, we belong to him. And money no longer is our master. It does not own us. We are set free from it. What a beautiful, wonderful truth that we could belong to him.Father, we thank you that in your generosity and your love for us you would set us free from what held us in captivity because we were being promised life in the path that leads to death. But we want the life that you offer. So would you remind us in your spirit of the resurrection power of Jesus? And would we be a church that participates in radical generosity? Because we are utterly and truly convinced that life is not found here. It's found in you. And we want to live and we want our hearts to be drawn towards you. Father, we love you and we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.One of the ways that we regularly remind ourselves of where true treasure lies and who the true master is is by participating in the Lord's Supper. This is a very practical and tangible reminder for us. We have real tables with real drink and bread up here and in the back and up in the balcony there's gluten free in the back right over here. And up in the balcony as well. But it's a real practice that you and I are about to stand up and walk and really grab some bread and eat it. And it's a reminder of who Jesus is and what he has done for us, that he went to the cross so that you and I could be set free from the bondage to something like money. And this is what Paul says about it in First Corinthians. He says,> "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." (1 Corinthians 11:23–26, ESV)So this morning, if you don't know Jesus, this practice isn't for you. Because we don't want you to be confused about who he is. We just want you to respond to Jesus, to respond in faith. This morning, though, if you belong to Jesus, this is a practice that we participate in, to remind ourselves of the cost of the generosity of our Father, that the Son would come and he would die on our behalf. And so take a moment wherever you are, and consider where is your heart? Where is the focus? And then confess. Confess that before the Father, but don't stop there. Come to the table and in coming, confess the work of Jesus that you and I have been set free from bondage and slavery to money. So when you're ready, come to the table and receive the most wonderful gift of his broken body and his poured out blood for you and I.

The holidays are here, and there's no better way to kick off the season than revisiting one of the greatest Christmas movies ever made — Home Alone. But this time, we're not just watching Kevin defend his house with paint cans, micro machines, and blowtorches. We're diving deep into what this classic can teach us about Emotional Intelligence, resilience, family dynamics, and how to navigate chaos with clarity.In today's 20-minute episode, The Shadows Podcast breaks down why Home Alone still hits home emotionally more than 30 years after its release. Beneath the comedy and iconic booby traps is a powerful story about courage, belonging, fear, forgiveness, and the emotional messiness that comes with being part of a family — even a wildly dysfunctional one.We open by stepping back into 1990, a year of cultural shifts, global tension, and cinematic magic. Home Alone premiered on November 16, 1990, and instantly became a box office juggernaut — holding the #1 spot for weeks and becoming the highest-grossing live-action comedy for nearly two decades. Today, it's more than nostalgia. It's a reminder that sometimes life throws chaos at us… and we still have the power to choose our response.Then we look at the McCallister family with a humorous EQ lens:✨ A full house of stress, ego, impatience, bad communication, questionable parenting choices (they forgot this kid twice), and a brother who downs Pepsi, wets the bed, and everyone just… accepts it.✨ A kid desperate to feel seen.✨ An old man judged entirely on rumor.✨ And two burglars who are somehow both terrifying and hilariously bad at their jobs.But hidden in all that dysfunction are lessons we can use in our daily lives.Each week on The Shadows Podcast, we give you practical tools — “cheat codes” — that you can actually use in real life. Today's episode breaks Home Alone into three actionable, easy-to-apply Emotional Intelligence lessons:Kevin didn't choose the chaos — but he chose the response.Life hits us with our own versions of paint cans, icy stairs, and unexpected blowtorches. This section explores how creativity, composure, and emotional regulation help us turn overwhelm into problem-solving power.Kevin was terrified of Old Man Marley because of the story he told himself. When they finally talk, Kevin realizes Marley isn't a monster — he's a human dealing with regret and loneliness. We explore how changing your perspective can change your relationships.Kevin goes from “I'm scared” to “This is my house, and I have to defend it.” This is a mindset shift we all need. Whether you're facing holiday stress, work conflict, or personal goals, confidence and self-trust are the foundation.Because this 20-minute episode gives you:• A nostalgic escape• A psychological breakdown of holiday stress• Tangible EQ skills you can apply immediately• A new way to watch a beloved Christmas classic• Humor, heart, and real-life emotional insightsWhether you're traveling, wrapping gifts, hiding from your relatives, or recovering from a burnt turkey, this episode will help you laugh, reflect, and navigate the season with more clarity and intention.

Minimalism had a long run. But consumers got bored and brands felt it.BMW pulled off a toll-lane stunt that turned Audi and Mercedes drivers into unwilling brand ambassadors. Apple dropped a knitted “iPhone Pocket” that has more in common with Hermès than hardware. And Pepsi just ended a decade of flat, sanitized branding with a bold return to maximalism.The new wave isn't clean, quiet, or neutral. It's loud, emotional, and intentionally polarizing.Because in a crowded market, clarity doesn't win contrast does.Which brand nailed the moment?

How to Build a Winning Strategy for Your B2B Brand In a fast-paced business environment, marketers, agencies, and consultants must proactively help clients differentiate their brands in the marketplace. One way of doing this is by analyzing the strategy, messaging, and brand positioning, both for their own brands and key competitors. So how can teams conduct this kind of brand research and competitive analysis in a way that's insightful, efficient, and actionable for planning the next steps? Tune in as the B2B Marketers on Mission Podcast presents the Marketing DEMO Lab Series, where we sit down with Clay Ostrom (Founder, Map & Fire) and his SmokeLadder platform designed for brand research, messaging and positioning analysis, and competitive benchmarking. In this episode, Clay explained the platform's origins and features, emphasizing its role in analyzing brand positioning, core messaging, and competitive landscapes. He also stressed the importance of clear, consistent brand positioning and messaging, and how standardized make it easier to compare brands across multiple business values. Clay also highlighted the value of objective, data-driven analysis to identify brand strengths, weaknesses, and gaps, and how tools like SmokeLadder can save significant time in gathering insights to build trust with clients. He provided practical steps for generating, refining, and exporting brand messaging and analysis for internal or client-facing use. Finally, Clay also discussed how action items and recommendations generated from analysis can immediately support smart brand strategy decisions and expedite trust-building with clients. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4_o1PzF1Kk Topics discussed in episode: [1:31] The purpose behind building SmokeLadder and why it matters for B2B teams [12:00] A walkthrough of the SmokeLadder platform and how it works [14:51] SmokeLadder's core features [17:48] How positioning scores and category rankings are calculated [35:36] How differentiation and competitors are analyzed inside SmokeLadder [44:07] How SmokeLadder builds messaging and generates targeted personas [50:24] The key benefits and unique capabilities that set SmokeLadder apart Companies and links: Clay Ostrom Map & Fire SmokeLadder Transcript Christian Klepp  00:00 In an increasingly competitive B2B landscape, marketers, agencies and consultants, need to proactively find ways to help their clients stand out amidst the digital noise. One way of doing this is by analyzing the strategy, messaging and positioning of their own brands and those of their competitors. So how can they do this in a way that’s insightful, efficient and effective? Welcome to this first episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast Demo Lab Series, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Clay Ostrom about this topic. He’s the owner and founder of the branding agency Map and Fire, and the creator of the platform Smoke Ladder that we’ll be talking about today. So let’s dive in. Christian Klepp  00:42 All right, and I’m gonna say Clay Ostrom. Welcome to this first episode of the Demo Lab Series. Clay Ostrom  00:50 I am super excited and very honored to be the first guest on this new series. It’s awesome. Christian Klepp  00:56 We are honored to have you here. And you know, let’s sit tight, or batten down the hatches and buckle up, and whatever other analogy you want to throw in there, because we are going to unpack a lot of interesting features and discuss interesting topics around the platform that you’ve built. And I think a good place to start, perhaps Clay before we start doing a walk through of the platform is, but let’s start at the very beginning. What motivated you to create this platform called Smoke Ladder. Clay Ostrom  01:31 So we should go all the way back to my childhood. I always dreamed of, you know, working on brand and positioning. You know, that was something I’ve always thought of since the early days, but no, but I do. I own an agency called Map and Fire, so I’ve been doing this kind of work for over 10 years now, and have worked with lots and lots of different kinds of clients, and over that time, developed different frameworks and a point of view about how to do this kind of work, and when the AI revolution kind of hit us all, it just really struck me that this was an opportunity to take a lot of that thinking and a lot of that, you know, again, my perspective on how to do this work and productize that and turn it into something that could be used by people when we’re not engaged with them, in some kind of service offering. So, so that was kind of the kernel of it. I actually have a background in computer science and product. So it was sort of this natural Venn diagram intersection of I can do some product stuff, I can do brand strategy stuff. So let’s put it together and build something. Christian Klepp  02:46 And the rest, as they say, is history. Clay Ostrom  02:49 The rest, as they say, is a lot of nights and weekends and endless hours slaving away at trying to build something useful. Christian Klepp  02:58 Sure, sure, that certainly is part of it, too. Clay Ostrom  03:01 Yeah. Christian Klepp  03:02 Let’s not keep the audience in suspense for too long here, right? Like, let’s start with the walk through. And before you share your screen, maybe I’ll set this up a little bit, right? Because you, as you said, like, you know, you’ve built this platform. It’s called Smoke Ladder, which I thought was a really clever name. It’s, you like to describe it as, like, your favorite SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool, but for brand research and analysis. So I would say, like, walk us through how somebody would use this platform, like, whether they be a marketer that’s already been like in the industry for years, or is starting out, or somebody working at a brand or marketing agency, and how does the platform address these challenges or questions that people have regarding brand strategy, analysis and research? Clay Ostrom  03:49 Yeah, yeah. I use that analogy of the SEO thing, just because, especially early on, I was trying to figure out the best way to describe it to someone who hasn’t seen it before. I feel like it’s a, I’m not going to fall into the trap of saying, this is the only product like this, but it has its own unique twists with what it can do. And I felt like SEO tools are something everybody has touched at one point or another. So I was using this analogy of, it’s like the s, you know, Semrush of positioning and messaging or Ahrefs, depending on your if you’re a Coke or Pepsi person. But I always felt like that was just a quick way to give a little idea of the fact that it’s both about analyzing your own brand, but it’s also about competitive analysis and being able to see what’s going on in the market or in your landscape, and looking specifically at what your competitors are doing and what their strengths and weaknesses are. So does that resonate with you in terms of, like, a shorthand way, I will say, I don’t. I don’t say that. It’s super explicitly on the website, but it’s been in conversation. Christian Klepp  05:02 No, absolutely, absolutely, that resonated with me. The only part that didn’t resonate with me is that I’m neither a coke or a Pepsi person. I’m more of a ginger ale type of guy. I digress. But yeah, let’s what don’t you share your screen, and let’s walk through this, right? Like, okay, if a marketing person were like, use the platform to do some research on, perhaps that marketers, like own company and the competitors as well, right? Like, what would they do? Clay Ostrom  05:32 Yeah, so that’s, that is, like you were saying, there’s, sort of, I guess, a few different personas of people who would potentially use this. And initially I was thinking a little more about both in house, people who, you know, someone who’s working on a specific brand, digging really deep on their own brand, whether they’re, you know, the marketing lead or whatever, maybe they’re the founder, and then this other role of agency owners, or people who work at an agency where they are constantly having to look at new brands, new categories, and quickly get up to speed on what those brands are doing and what’s the competitive space look like, you know, for that brand. And that’s something that, if you work at an agency, which obviously we both have our own agencies, we do this stuff weekly. I mean, every time a new lead comes in, we have to quickly get up to speed and understand something about what they do. And one of the big gaps that I found, and I’d be curious to kind of hear your thoughts on this, but I’ve had a lot of conversations with other agency owners, and I think one of the biggest gaps is often that brands are just not always that great at explaining their own brand or positioning or differentiation to you, and sometimes they have some documentation around it, but a lot of times they don’t. A lot of it’s word of mouth, and that makes it really hard to do work for them. If whatever you’re doing for them, whether that’s maybe you are working on SEO or maybe you’re working on paid ads or social or content, you have to know what the brand is doing and kind of what they’re again, what their strengths and weaknesses are, so that you can talk about that. I mean, do you come across that a lot in your work? Christian Klepp  07:33 How do I say this without offending anybody? I find, I mean jokes aside, I find, more often than not, in the especially in the B2B space, which is an area that I operate in, I find 888 point five times out of 10. We are dealing with companies that have a they, have a very rude, rudimentary, like, framework of something that remotely resembles some form of branding. And I know that was a very long winded answer, but it’s kind of sort of there, but not really, if you know what I mean. Clay Ostrom  08:17 Yeah. Christian Klepp  08:17 And there have been other extreme cases where they’ve got the logo and the website, and that’s as far as their branding goals. And I would say that had they had all these, this discipline, like branding system and structure in place, then people like maybe people like you and I will be out on a job, right and it’s something, and I’m sure you’ve come across this, and we’ll probably dig into this later, but like you, it’s something I’ve come across several times, especially in the B2B space, where branding is not taken seriously until it becomes serious. I know that sounds super ironic, right, but, and it’s to the point of this platform, right, which we’re going to dig into in a second, but it’s, it’s things, for instance, positioning right, like, are you? Are you, in fact, strategically positioned against competitors? Is your messaging resonating with, I would imagine, especially in the B2B context, with the multiple group target groups that you have, or that your company is, is going after? Right? Is that resonating, or is this all like something that I call the internal high five? You’ve this has all been developed to please internal stakeholders and and then you take it to market, and it just does not, it just does not resonate with the target audience at all. Right? So there’s such a complex plethora of challenges here, right? That people like yourself and like you and I are constantly dealing with, and I think that’s also part of the reason why I would say a platform like this is important, because it helps to not just aggregate data. I mean, certainly it does that too, but it helps. To put things properly, like into perspective at speed. I think that might be, that might be something that you would have talked about later, but it does this at speed, because I think, from my own experience, one of the factors in our world that sometimes works against us is time, right? Clay Ostrom  10:19 No, I totally agree, yeah, and, you know, we’re lucky, I guess would be the word that we are often hired to work on a company strategy with them and help them clarify these things. Christian Klepp  10:33 Absolutely. Clay Ostrom  10:34 There are a million other flavors of agencies out there who are being hired to execute on work for a brand, and not necessarily being brought in to redefine, you know what the brand, you know they’re positioning and their messaging and some of these fundamental things, so they’re kind of stuck with whatever they get. And like you said, a lot of times it’s not much. It might be a logo and a roughly put together website, and maybe not a whole lot else. So, yeah, but I think your other point about speed is that was a huge part of this. I think the market is only accelerating right now, because it’s becoming so much easier to start up new companies and new brands and new products. And now we’ve got vibe coding, so you can technically build a product in a day, maybe launch it the next day, start marketing it, you know, by the weekend. And all of this is creating noise and competition, and it’s all stuff that we have to deal with as marketers. We have to understand the landscape. We’ve got to quickly be able to analyze all these different brands, see where the strengths and weaknesses are and all that stuff. So… Christian Klepp  11:46 Absolutely. Clay Ostrom  11:46 But, yeah, that, I think that the speed piece is a huge part of this for sure. Christian Klepp  11:51 Yeah. So, so we’re okay, so we’re on the I guess this, this will probably be the homepage. So just walk us through what, what a marketing person would do if they want to use this platform, yeah? Clay Ostrom  12:00 So the very first thing you do when you come in, and this was when I initially conceived of this product, one of the things that I really wanted was the ability to have very quick feedback, be able to get analysis for whatever brand you’re looking at, you know, right away to be able to get some kind of, you know, insight or analysis done. So the first thing you can do, and you can do this literally, from the homepage of the website, you can enter in a URL for a brand, come into the product, even before you’ve created an account, you can come in and you can do an initial analysis, so you can put in whatever URL you’re looking at, could be yours, could be a competitor, and run that initial analysis. What we’re looking at here, this is, if you do create an account, this is, this becomes your, as we say, like Home Base, where you can save brands that you’re looking at. You can see your history, all that good stuff. And it just gives you some quick bookmarks so that you can kind of flip back and forth between, maybe it’s your brand, maybe it’s some of the competitors you’re looking at and then it gives you just some quick, kind of high level directional info. And I kind of break it up into these different buckets. Clay Ostrom  13:23 And again, I’d love to kind of hear if this is sort of how you think about it, too. But there’s sort of these different phases when you’re working on a brand. And again, this is sort of from an agency perspective, but you first got the sort of the research and the pitch piece. So this is before maybe you’re even working with them. You’re trying to get an understanding of what they do. Then we have discovery and onboarding, where we’re digging in a little bit deeper. We’re trying to really put together, what does the brand stand for, what are their strengths and weaknesses? And then we have the deeper dive, the strategy and differentiation. And this is where we’re really going in and getting more granular with the specific value points that they offer, doing some of that messaging analysis, finding, finding some of the gaps of the things that they’re talking about or not talking about, and going in deeper. So it kind of break it up into these buckets, based on my experience of how we engage with clients. Does that? Does that make sense to you, like, does that? Christian Klepp  14:28 It does make sense, I think. But what could be helpful for the audience is because this, this almost looks like it’s a pre cooked meal. All right, so what do we do we try another I mean, I think you use Slack for the analysis. Why don’t we use another brand, and then just pop it into that analysis field, and then see what it comes out with. Clay Ostrom  14:51 So the nice thing about this is, if you are looking at a brand that’s been analyzed, you’re going to get the data up really quickly. It’ll be basically pop up instantly. But you can analyze a brand from scratch as well. Just takes about a minute or so, basically, to kind of do some of the analysis. So for the sake of a demo, it’s a little easier just to kind of look at something that we’ve got in there. But if it’s a brand that you know, maybe you’re looking at a competitor for one of your brands, you know, there’s a good chance, because we’ve got about 6000 brands that we’ve analyzed in here, that there’s a good chance there’ll be some info on them. But so this is pipe drive. So whoever’s not familiar Pipedrive is, you know, it’s a CRM  (Customer Relationship Management), it’s, it’s basically, you know, it’s a lighter version of a HubSpot or Salesforce basically track deals and opportunities for business, but this so I flipped over. I don’t know if it was clear there, but I flipped over to this brand brief tab. And this is where we we get, essentially, a high level view of some key points about the brand and and I think about this as this would be something that you would potentially share with a client if you were, you know, working with them and you wanted to review the brand with them and make sure that your analysis is on point, but you’ll see it’s kind of giving you some positioning scores, where you rank from a category perspective, message clarity, and then we’ve got things like a quick overview, positioning summary, who their target persona is, in this case, sales manager, sales operation lead, and some different value points. And then it starts to get a little more granular. We get into like key competitors, Challenger brands. We do a little SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, and then maybe one of the more important parts is some of these action items. So what do we do with this? Yeah, and obviously, these are, these are starting points. This is not, it’s not going to come in and, you know, instantly be able to tell you strategically, exactly what to do, but it’s going to give you some ideas of based on the things we’ve seen. Here are some reasonable points that you might want to be looking at to, you know, improve the brand. Make it make it stronger. Christian Klepp  17:13 Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, this is all great clay, but like, I think, for the benefit of the audience, can we scroll back up, please. And let’s just walk through these one by one, because I think it’s important for the audience/potential future users,/ customers of Smoke Ladder, right? To understand, to understand this analysis in greater depth, and also, like, specifically, like, let’s start with a positioning score right, like, out of 100 like, what is this? What is this based on? And how was this analyzed? Let’s start with that. Clay Ostrom  17:48 Yeah, and this is where the platform really started. And I’m going to actually jump over to the positioning tab, because this will give us the all the detail around this particular feature. But this is, this was where I began the product this. I kind of think of this as being, in many ways, sort of the heart and soul of it. And when I mentioned earlier about this being based on our own work and frameworks and how we approach this, this is very much the case with this. This is, you know, the approach we use with the product is exactly how we work with clients when we’re evaluating their positioning. And it’s, it’s basically, it’s built off a series of scores. And what we have here are 24 different points of business value, which, if we zoom in just a little bit down here, we can see things like reducing risk, vision, lowering cost, variety, expertise, stability, etc. So there’s 24 of these that we look at, and it’s meant to be a way that we can look across different brands and compare and contrast them. So it’s creating, like, a consistent way of looking at brands, even if they’re not in the same category, or, you know, have slightly different operating models, etc. But what we do is we go in and we score every brand on each of these 24 points. And if we scroll down here a little bit, we can see the point of value, the exact score they got, the category average, so how it compares against, you know, all the other brands we’ve analyzed, and then a little bit of qualitative information about why they got the score. Christian Klepp  19:27 Sorry, Clay, Can I just jump in for a second so these, these attributes, or these key values that you had in the graph at the top right, like, are these consistent throughout regardless of what brand is being analyzed, or the least change. Clay Ostrom  19:42 It’s consistent. Christian Klepp  19:43 Consistent? Clay Ostrom  19:44 Yeah, and that was one of the sort of strategic decisions we had to make with the product. Was, you know, there’s a, maybe another version of this, where you do different points depending on maybe the category, or, you know, things like that. But I wanted to do it consistent because, again, it allows us to look at every brand through the same lens. It doesn’t mean that every brand you know there are certain points of value that just aren’t maybe relevant for a particular brand, and that’s fine, they just won’t score as highly in those but at least it gives us a consistent way to look at so when you’re looking at 10 different competitors, you know you’ve got a consistent way to look at them together,. Christian Klepp  20:26 Right, right, right. Okay, okay, all right, thanks for that. Now let’s go down to the next section there, where you’ve got, like this table with like four different columns here. So you mentioned that these are being scored against other brands in their category. Like, can you share it with the audience? Like, how many other brands are being analyzed here? Clay Ostrom  20:51 Yeah, well, it depends on the category. So again, we’ve got six, you know, heading towards 7000 brands that we’ve analyzed collectively. Each category varies a little bit, but, you know, some categories, we have more brands than others. But what this allows us to do is, again, to quickly look at this and say, okay, for pipe drive, a big focus for pipe drive is organization, simplification. You know, one of their big value props is we’re an easier tool to use than Salesforce or HubSpot. You can get up to speed really quickly. You don’t have all the setup and configurations and all that kind of stuff. So this is showing us that, yes, like their messaging, their content, their brand, does, in fact, do a good job of making it clear that simplicity is a big part of pipe drive’s message. And they do that by talking about it a lot in their messaging, having case studies, having testimonials, all these things that support it. And that’s how we come up with these scores. Is by saying, like the brand emphasizes these points well, they talk about it clearly, and that’s what we base it on. Christian Klepp  22:04 Okay, okay. Clay Ostrom  22:06 But as you come, I was just gonna say as you come down here, you can see, so the green basically means that they score well above average for that particular point. Yellow is, you know, kind of right around average, or maybe slightly above, and then red means that they’re below average for that particular point. So for example, like variety of tools, they don’t emphasize that as much with pipe drive, maybe compared to, again, like a Salesforce or a HubSpot that has a gazillion tools, pipe drive, that’s not a big focus for them. So they don’t score as highly there, but you can kind of just get a quick view of, okay, here are the things that they’re really strong with, and here are the things that maybe they’re, you know, kind of weak or below average. Christian Klepp  22:58 Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s certainly interesting, because I, you know, I’ve, I’ve used the, I’ve used the platform for analyzing some of my clients, competitor brands. And, you know, when I’m looking at this, like analysis with the scoring, with the scoring sheet, it, I think it will also be interesting perhaps in future, because you’ve got a very detailed breakdown of, okay, the factors and how they’re scored, and what the brand value analysis is also, because, again, in the interest of speed and time, it’d be great if the platform can also churn out maybe a one to two sentence like, summary of what is this data telling us, right? Because I’m thinking back to my early days as a product manager, and we would spend hours, like back then on Excel spreadsheets. I’m dating myself a little bit here, but um, and coming up with this analysis and charts, but presenting that to senior management, all they wanted to know was the one to two sentence summary of like, come on. What are you telling me with all these charts, like, what is the data telling you that we need to know? Right? Clay Ostrom  24:07 I know it’s so funny. We again, as strategists and researchers, we love to nerd out about the granular details, but you’re right. When you’re talking to a leader at a business, it does come down to like, okay, great. What do we do? And so, and I flipped back over to slacks. I knew I had already generated this but, but we’re still in the positioning section here, but we have this get insights feature. So basically it will look at all those scores and give you kind of, I think, similar to what you’re describing. Like, here’s three takeaways from what we’re seeing. Okay, okay, great, yeah, so we don’t want to leave you totally on your own to have to figure it all out. We’ll give you, give you a little helping hand. Christian Klepp  24:53 Yeah. You don’t want to be like in those western movies, you’re on your own kid. Clay Ostrom  24:59 Yeah. We try not to strand you again. There’s a lot of data here. I think that’s one of the strengths and and challenges with the platform, is that we try to give you a lot of data. And for some people, you may not want to have to sift through all of it. You might want just sort of give me the three points here. Christian Klepp  25:19 Absolutely, absolutely. And at the very least they can start pointing you in the right direction, and then you could be, you could then, like, through your own initiative, and perhaps dig a little bit deeper and perhaps find some other insights that may be, may be relevant, right? Clay Ostrom  25:35 Totally. Christian Klepp  25:36 Hey, it’s Christian Klepp here. We’ll get back to the episode in a second. But first, I’d like to tell you about a new series that we’re launching on our show. As the B2B landscape evolves, marketers need to adapt and leverage the latest marketing tools and software to become more efficient. Enter B2B Marketers on a Mission Marketing Demo Lab where experts discuss the latest tools and software that empower you to become a better B2B marketer. Tune in as we chat with product experts. Provide unbiased product reviews, give advice and deliver insights into real world applications and actionable tips on tools and technologies for B2B marketing. Subscribe to the Marketing Demo Lab, YouTube channel and B2B Marketers on a Mission, on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Christian Klepp  26:21 All right. Now, back to the show, if we can, if we could jump back, sorry, to the, I think it was the brand brief, right? Like, where we where we started out, and I said, let’s, let’s dig deeper. Okay, so then, then we have, okay, so we talked about positioning score. Now we’re moving on to category rank and message clarity score. What does that look like? Clay Ostrom  26:41 Yeah. So the category rank is, it’s literally just looking at the positioning score that you’ve gotten for the brand and then telling you within this category, where do you sort of fall in the ranking, essentially, or, like, you know, how do we, you know, for comparing the score against all the competitors, where do you fall? So you can see, with Slack, they’re right in the middle. And it’s interesting, because with a product like Slack, even though we all now know what slack is and what it does and everything. Christian Klepp  27:18 Yeah. Clay Ostrom  27:19 The actual messaging and content that they have now, I think maybe doesn’t do as good of a job as it maybe did once upon a time, and it’s gotten as products grow and brands grow, they tend to get more vague, a little more broad with what they talk about, and that kind of leads to softer positioning. So that’s sort of what we’re seeing reflected here. And then the third score is the message clarity score, which we can jump into, like, a whole different piece. Christian Klepp  27:48 Four on a tennis not a very high score, right? Clay Ostrom  27:52 Yeah. And again, I think it’s a product, of, we can kind of jump into that section. Christian Klepp  27:57 Yeah, let’s do that, yeah. Clay Ostrom  27:59 But it’s, again, a product, I think of Slack being now a very mature product that is has gotten sort of a little vague, maybe a little broader, with their messaging. But the message clarity score, we basically have kind of two parts to this on the left hand side are some insights that we gather based on the messaging. So what’s your category, quick synopsis of the product. But then we also do some things, like… Christian Klepp  28:33 Confusing part the most confusing. Clay Ostrom  28:36 Honestly to me, as I get I’d love to hear your experience with this, but coming into a new brand, this is sometimes one of the most enlightening parts, because it shows me quickly where some gaps in what we’re talking about, and in this case, just kind of hits on what we were just saying a minute ago. Of the messaging is overloaded with generic productivity buzzwords, fails to clearly differentiate how Slack is better than email or similar tools, etc. But also, this is another one that I really like, and I use this all the time, which is the casual description. So rather than this technical garbage jargon, you know, speak, just give me. Give it to me in plain English, like we’re just chatting. And so this description of it’s a workplace chat app for teams to message, collaborate, share files. Like, okay, cool. Like, yeah, you know, I get it. Yeah, I already know what slack is. But if I didn’t, that would tell me pretty well. Christian Klepp  29:33 Absolutely, yeah, yeah. No, my experience with this is has been, you know, you and I have been in the branding space for a while. So for the trained eye, when you look at messaging, you’ll know if it’s good or not, right. And we come I mean, I’m sure you do the same clay, but I also come to my own like conclusions based on experience of like, okay, so why do I think that that’s good messaging, or why do I think that that’s confusing messaging? Or it falls short, and why and how can that be improved? But it’s always good to have validation with either with platforms like this, where you have a you have AI, or you have, you have a software that you can use that analyzes, like, for example, like the messaging on a website, and it dissects that and says, Well, okay, so this is what they’re getting, right? So there’s a scoring for that, so it’s in the green, and then this is, this is where it gets confusing, right? So even you run that through, you run that through the machine, and the machine analyzes it as like, Okay, we can’t clearly, clearly define what it is they’re doing based on the messaging, right? And for me, that’s always a it’s good. It’s almost like getting a second doctor’s opinion, right? And then you go, Aha. So I we’ve identified the symptoms now. So let’s find the penicillin, right? Like, let’s find the remedy for this, right? Clay Ostrom  30:56 Yeah, well, and I like what you said there, because part of the value, I think, with this is it’s an objective perspective on the brand, so it doesn’t have any baggage. It’s coming in with fresh eyes, the same way a new customer would come into your website, where they don’t know really much about you, and they have to just take what you’re giving at face value about what you present. And we as people working on brands get completely blinded around what’s actually working, what’s being communicated. There’s so much that we take for granted about what we already know about the brand. And this comes in and just says, Okay, I’m just, I’m just taking what you give me, and I’m going to tell you what I see, and I see some gaps around some of these things. You know, I don’t have the benefit of sitting in your weekly stand up meeting and hearing all the descriptions of what you’re actually doing. Christian Klepp  31:59 I’m sorry to jump in. I’m interested to know, like, just, just based on what we’ve been reviewing so far, like, what has your experience been showing this kind of analysis to clients, and how do they respond to some of this data, for example, that you know, you’re walking us through right now? Clay Ostrom  32:18 Yeah, I think it’s been interesting. Honestly, I think it can sometimes feel harsh. And I think again, as someone who’s both run an agency and also built worked on brands, we get attached to our work on an emotional level. Christian Klepp  32:42 Absolutely. Clay Ostrom  32:42 Even if we think about it as, you know, this is just work, and it’s, you know, whatever, we still build up connections with our work and we want it to be good. And so I think there’s sometimes a little bit of a feeling of wow, like that’s harsh, or I would have expected or thought we would have done better or scored better in certain areas, but that is almost always followed up with but I’m so glad to know where, where we’re struggling, because now I can fix it. I can actually know what to focus on to fix, and that, to me, is what it’s all about, is, yes, there’s a little bit of feelings attached to some of these things, maybe, but at the end of the day, we really want it to be good. We want it to be clear. We don’t want to be a 4 out of 10. We want to be a 10 out of 10. And what specifically do we need to do to get there? And that’s really what we’re trying to reveal with this. So I think, you know, everybody’s a little different, but I would say the reactions are typically a mix of that. It’s like, maybe an ouch, but a Oh, good. Let’s work on it. Christian Klepp  33:55 Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. So we’ve got brand summary, we’ve got fundamentals, then quality of messaging is the other part of it, right? Clay Ostrom  34:02 So, yeah, so this, this is, this is where the actual 4 out of 10 comes. We have these 10 points that we look at and we say, Okay, are you communicating these things clearly? Are you communicating who your target customer is, your category, your offering, where you’re differentiated benefits? Do you have any kind of concrete claim about what you do to support you know what you’re what you’re selling? Is the messaging engaging? Is it concise? You’ll see here a 7% on concise. That’s basically telling us that virtually no brands do a good job of being concise. Only about 7% get a green check mark on this, and kind of similar with the jargon and the vague words big struggle points with almost every brand. Christian Klepp  34:55 Streamline collaboration. Clay Ostrom  34:58 So we can see here with Slack. You know some of the jargon we got, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), MQLs (Marketing Qualified Lead), if you’re in the space, you could argue like, oh, I kind of know what those things are. But depending on your role, you may not always know. In something like Salesforce marketing cloud, unless you’re a real Salesforce nerd, you probably have no idea what that is. But again, it’s just a way to quickly identify some of those weak points, things that we could improve to make our message more clear. Christian Klepp  35:27 Yes, yes. Okay, so that was the messaging analysis correct? Clay Ostrom  35:33 Yeah. Christian Klepp  35:33 Yeah. Okay. So what else have we got? Clay Ostrom  35:36 Yeah, so I think one other thing we could look at just for a sec, is differentiation, and this is this kind of plays off of what we looked at a minute ago with the positioning scores. But this is a way for us to look head to head with two different brands. So in this case, we’ve got Slack in the red and we’ve got Discord in the greenish blue. And I think of these, these patterns, as sort of the fingerprint of your brand. So where you Where are you strong? Where are you weak? And if we can overlay those two fingerprints on top of each other, we can see, where do we have advantages, and where does our competitor have advantages? So if we come down, we can sort of see, and this is again, for the nerds like me, to be able to come in and go deep, do kind of a deep dive on specifically, why did, why does Discord score better than Slack in certain areas. And at the bottom here we can see a kind of a quick summary. So slack is stronger in simplification, saving time, Discord has some better messaging around generating revenue, lowering costs, marketability. But again, this gives us a way to think about what are the things we want to double down on? So what do we want to actually be known for in the market? Because we can’t be known for everything. You know, buyers can maybe only remember a couple things about us. What are those couple things where we’re really strong, where we really stand out, and we’ve got some separation from the competitors. Christian Klepp  37:18 Right, okay, okay, just maybe we take a step back here, because I think this is great. It’s very detailed. It gets a bit granular, but I think it’s also going back to a conversation that you and I had previously about, like, Okay, why is it so important to be armed with this knowledge, especially if you’re in the marketing role, or perhaps even an agency talking to a potential client going in there already armed with the information about their competitors. And we were talking about this being a kind of like a trust building mechanism, right? For lack of a better description, right? Clay Ostrom  38:03 Yeah, I think to me, what I like about this, and again, this does come out of 10 years of doing work, this kind of work with clients as well, is it’s so easy to fall into a space of soft descriptions around things like positioning and just sort of using vague, you know, wordings or descriptions, and when you can actually put a number on it, which, again, it’s subjective. This isn’t. This isn’t an objective metric, but it’s a way for us to compare and contrast. It allows us to have much more productive conversations with clients, where we can say we looked at your brand, we we what based on our analysis, we see that you’re scoring a 10 and a 9 on simplicity and organization, for example. Is that accurate to you like do you think that’s what you all are emphasizing the most? Does that? Does that resonate and at the same time, we can say, but your competitors are really focused on there. They have a strong, strong message around generating revenue and lowering costs for their customers. Right now, you’re not really talking about that. Is that accurate? Is that like, what you is that strategically, is that what you think you should be doing so really quickly, I’ve now framed a conversation that could have been very loose and kind of, you know, well, what do you think your strategy is about? What do you know? And instead, I can say, we see you being strong in these three points. We see your competitors being strong in these three points. What do you think about that? And I think that kind of clarity just makes the work so much more productive with clients, or just again, working on your own brand internally. So what do you think about that kind of perspective? Christian Klepp  40:08 Yeah, no, no, I definitely agree with that. It’s always and I’ve been that type of person anyway that you know you go into a especially with somebody that hasn’t quite become a client yet, right? One of the most important things is also, how should I put this? Certainly the trust building part of it needs to be there. The other part is definitely a demonstration of competence and ability, but it’s also that you’ve been proactive and done your homework, versus like, Okay, I’m I’m just here as an order taker, right? And let’s just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it right? A lot and especially, I think this has been a trend for a long time already, but a lot of the clients that I’ve worked with now in the past, they want to, they’re looking for a partner that’s not just thinking with them, it’s someone that’s thinking ahead of them. And this type of work, you know what we’re seeing here on screen, this is the type of work that I would consider thinking ahead of them, right? Clay Ostrom  41:18 No, I agree. I think you framed that really well. Of we’re trying to build trust, because if we’re going to make any kind of recommendations around a change or a shift, they have to believe that we know what we’re talking about, that we’re competent, that we’ve done the work. And I think I agree with you. I think like this, it’s kind of funny, like we all, I think, on some base level, are attracted to numbers and scores. It just gives us something to latch on to. But I think it also, like you said, it gives you a feeling that you’ve done your work, that you’ve done your homework, you’ve studied, you’ve you’ve done some analysis that they themselves may have never done on this level. And that’s a big value. Christian Klepp  42:08 Yes, and a big part of the reason just to, just to build on what you said, a big part of the reason why they haven’t done this type of work is because it’s not so much. The cost is certainly one part of it, but it’s the time, it’s a time factor and the resource and the effort that needs to be put into it. Because, you know, like, tell me if you’ve never heard this one before, but there are some, there are some companies that we’ve been working with that don’t actually have a clearly, like, you know, a clear document on who their their target personas are, yeah, or their or their ICPs, never mind the buyer’s journey map. They don’t, they don’t even have the personas mapped out, right? Clay Ostrom  42:52 100% Yeah, it’s, and it’s, I think you’re right. It’s, it’s a mix of time and it’s a mix of just experience where, if you are internal with a brand, you don’t do this kind of work all the time. You might do it at the beginning. Maybe you do a check in every once in a while, but you need someone who’s done this a lot with a lot of different brands so that they can give you guidance through this kind of framework. But so it’s, you know, so some of it is a mix of, you know, we don’t have the time always to dig in like this. But some of it is we don’t even know how to do it, even if we did have the time. So it’s hopefully giving, again, providing some different frameworks and different ways of looking at it. Christian Klepp  43:41 Absolutely, absolutely. So okay, so we’ve gone through. What is it now, the competitor comparison. What else does the platform provide us that the listeners and the audience should be paying attention to here? Clay Ostrom  43:55 So I’ll show you two more quick things. So one is this message building section. So this is… Christian Klepp  44:03 Are you trying to put me out of a job here Clay? Clay Ostrom  44:07 Well, I’ll say this. So far in my experience with this, it’s not going to put us out of a job, but it is going to hopefully make our job easier and better. It’s going to make us better at the work we do. And that’s really, I think that’s, I think that’s kind of, most people’s impression of AI at this point is that it’s not quite there to replace us, but it’s sure, certainly can enhance what we do. Christian Klepp  44:36 Yeah, you’ll excuse me, I couldn’t help but throw that one out. Clay Ostrom  44:38 Yeah, I know, trust me, I’m this. It’s like I’m building a product that, in a sense, is undercutting, you know, the work that I do. So it is kind of a weird thing, but this message building section, which is a new part of the platform. It will come in, and you can see on the right hand side. And there’s sort of a quick summary of all these different elements that we’ve already analyzed. And then it’s going to give you some generated copy ideas, including, if I zoom in a little bit here, we’ve got an eyebrow category. This is again for Slack. It’s giving us a headline idea, stay informed without endless emails. Sub headline call to action, three challenges that your customers are facing, and then three points about your solution that help address those for customers. So it’s certainly not writing all of your copy for you, but if you’re starting from scratch, or you’re working on something new, or even if you’re trying to refresh a brand. I think this can be helpful to give you some messaging that’s hopefully clear. That’s something that I think a lot of messaging misses, especially in B2B, it’s, it’s not always super clear, like what you even do. Christian Klepp  45:56 Don’t get me started. Clay Ostrom  45:59 So hopefully it’s clear. It’s, you know, again, it’s giving you some different ideas. And that you’ll see down here at the bottom, you can, you can iterate on this. So we’ve got several versions. You can actually come in and, you know, you can edit it yourself. So if you say, like, well, I like that, but not quite that, you know, I can, you know, get my human touch on it as well. But yeah, so it’s a place to iterate on message. Christian Klepp  46:25 You can kind of look at it like, let’s say, if you’re writing a blog article, and this will give you the outline, right? Yeah. And then most of the AI that I’ve worked with to generate outlines, they’re not quite there. But again, if you’re starting from zero and you want to go from zero to 100 Well, that’ll, that’ll at least get you to 40 or 50, right? But I’m curious to know, because we’re looking at this now, and I think this, I mean, for me, this is, this is fascinating, but, like, maybe, maybe this will be part of your next iteration. But will this, will this generate messaging that’s already SEO optimized. Clay Ostrom  47:02 You know, it’s not specifically geared towards that, but I would say that it ends up being maybe more optimized than a lot of other messaging because it puts such an emphasis on clarity, it naturally includes words and phrases that I think are commonly used in the space more so than you know, maybe just kind of typical off the shelf Big B2B messaging, Christian Klepp  47:27 Gotcha. I had a question on the target persona that you’ve got here on screen, right? So how does the platform generate the information that will then populate that field because, and when I’m just trying to think about like, you know, because I’ve been, I’ve been in the space for as long as you have, and the way that I’ve generated target personas in the past was not by making a wild guess about, like, you know, looking at the brand’s website. It’s like having conducting deep customer research and listening to hours and hours of recordings, and from there, generating a persona. And this has done it in seconds. So… Clay Ostrom  48:09 Yeah, it’s so the way the system works in a couple different layers. So it does an initial analysis, where it does positioning, messaging analysis and category analysis, then you can generate the persona on top of that. So it takes all the learnings that it got from the category, from the product, from your messaging, and then develops a persona around that. And it’s, of course, able to also pull in, you know, the AI is able to reference things that it knows about the space in general. But I have found, and this is true. I was just having a conversation with someone who works on a very niche brand for a very specific audience, and I was showing him what it had output. And I said, Tell me, like, Don’t hold back. Like, is this accurate? He said, Yeah, this is, like, shockingly accurate for you know, how we view our target customer. So I think it’s pretty good. It’s not again, not going to be perfect. You’re going to need to do some work, and you still got to do the research, but, but, yeah. Christian Klepp  49:13 Okay, fantastic, fantastic. How do, I guess there’s the option, I see it there, like, download the PDF. So anything that’s analyzed on the platform can then be exported in a PDF format, right? Like, like, into a report. Clay Ostrom  49:28 Yeah, right now you can export the messaging analysis, or, sorry, the the messaging ideation that you’ve done, and then in the brand brief you can also, you can download a PDF of the brand brief as well. So, those are the two main areas. I’m still working on some additional exports of data so that people can pull it into a spreadsheet and do some other stuff with it. Christian Klepp  49:49 Fantastic, fantastic. That’s awesome, Clay. I’ve got a couple more questions before I let you go. But this has been, this has been amazing, right? Like and I really hope that whoever’s in the one listening and, most importantly, watching this, I hope that you really do consider like, you know, taking this for a test drive, right? How many I might have asked you this before, because, you know, I am somebody that does use, you know, that does a lot of this type of research. But how much time would you say companies would save by using Smoke Ladder? Clay Ostrom  50:24 It’s a good question. I feel like I’m starting to get some feedback around that with from our users, but I mean, for me personally, I would typically spend an hour or two just to get kind of up to speed initially, with a brand and kind of look at some of their competitors. If I’m doing a deep dive, though, if I’m actually doing some of the deeper research work, it could be several hours per client. So I don’t know. On a given week, it might depend on how many clients you’re talking to. Could be anywhere from a few hours to 10 hours or more, depending on how much work you’re doing. But, yeah, I think it’s a decent amount. Christian Klepp  51:07 Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, this definitely does look like a time saver. Here comes my favorite question, which you’re gonna look at me like, Okay, I gotta, I gotta. Clay Ostrom  51:17 Now bring it on. Let’s go. Christian Klepp  51:22 Folks that are not familiar with Smoke Ladder are gonna look at this, um, and before they actually, um, take it upon themselves to, like, watch, hopefully, watch this video on our channel. Um, they’re gonna look at that and ask themselves, Well, what is it that Smoke Ladder does that? You know that other AI couldn’t do, right, like, so I guess what I’m trying to say is, like, Okay, why would they use? How does the platform differ from something like ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude, right? To run a brand analysis? Clay Ostrom  52:00 Yeah, no, I think it’s a great question. I think it’s sort of the it’s going to be the eternal AI question for every product that has an AI component. And I would say to me, it’s three things. So one is the data, which we talked about, and I didn’t show you this earlier, but there is a search capability in here to go through our full archive of all the brands we’ve analyzed, and again, we’ve analyzed over 6000 brands. So the data piece is really important here, because it means we’re not just giving you insights and analysis based on the brand that you’re looking at now, but we can compare and contrast against all the other brands that we’ve looked at in the space, and that’s something that you’re not going to get by just using some off the shelf standard LLM  (Large Language Model) and doing some, you know, some quick prompts with that. The next one, I think, to me that’s important is it’s the point of view of the product and the brand. Like I said, this is built off of 10 plus years of doing positioning and messaging work in the space. So you’re getting to tap into that expertise and that approach of how we do things and building frameworks that make this work easier and more productive that you wouldn’t get, or you wouldn’t know, just on your own. And then the last one, the last point, which is sort of the kind of like the generic software answer, is you get a visual interface for this stuff. It’s the difference between using QuickBooks versus a spreadsheet. You can do a lot of the same stuff that you do in QuickBooks and a spreadsheet, but wouldn’t you rather have a nice interface and some easy buttons to click that make your job way, way easier and do a lot of the work for you and also be able to present it in a way that’s digestible and something you could share with clients? So the visual component in the UI is sort of that last piece. Christian Klepp  54:01 Absolutely. I mean, it’s almost like UX and UI one on one. That’s, that’s pretty much like a big part of, I think what it is you’re trying to build here, right? Clay Ostrom  54:13 Yeah, exactly. It’s just it’s making all of those things that you might do in an LLM just way, way easier. You know, you basically come in, put in your URL and click a button, and you’re getting access to all the data and all the insights and all this stuff so. Christian Klepp  54:29 Absolutely, absolutely okay. And as we wrap this up, this has been a fantastic conversation, by the way, how can the audience start using Smoke Ladder, and how can they get in touch with you if they have questions, and hopefully good questions. Clay Ostrom  54:47 Yeah, so you can, if you go to https://smokeladder.com/ you can, you can try it out. Like I said, you can basically go to the homepage, put in a URL and get started. You don’t even have to create an account to do the initial analysis. But you can create FREE account. You can dig in and see, you know, play around with all the features, and if you use it more, you know, we give you a little bit of a trial period. And if you use it beyond that, then you can pay and continue to use it, but, but you can get a really good flavor of it for free. Christian Klepp  55:16 Fantastic, fantastic. Oh, last question, because, you know, it’s looking me right in the face now, industry categories. How many? How many categories can be analyzed on the platform? Clay Ostrom  55:26 Yeah, yeah. So right now, we have 23 categories in the system currently, which sounds like a lot, but when you start to dig into especially B2B, it’s we will be evolving that and continuing to add more, but currently, there’s 23 different categories of businesses in there. Christian Klepp  55:46 All right, fantastic, fantastic. Clay, man. This has been so awesome. Thank you so much for your time and for your patience and walking us through this, this incredible platform that you’ve built and continue to build. And you know, I’m excited to continue using this as it evolves. Clay Ostrom  56:06 Thank you. Yeah, no. Thanks so much. And you know, if anybody, you know, anybody who tries it out, tests it out, please feel free to reach out. We have, you know, contact info on there. You can also hit me up on LinkedIn. I spend a lot of time there, but I would love feedback, love getting notes, love hearing what’s working, what’s not, all those things. So yeah, anytime I’m always open. Christian Klepp  56:30 All right, fantastic. Once again, Clay, thanks for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Clay Ostrom  56:36 Thanks so much. Talk to you soon. Christian Klepp  56:37 All right. Bye for now.

San Francisco is suing the makers of ultra processed food or UPFs, arguing local government is picking up the bill for the serious health consequences from their products; including conditions like obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease & cancer. 10 companies including Nestle, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Kraft Heinz and Mondelez are targeted in the legal action. Professor Boyd Swinburn from the University of Auckland's school of population health spoke to Lisa Owen.

Brain Drain Episode 64 with Toby Batchelor & Forde Brookfield

In today's small business landscape, nothing is business as usual. Economic pressures, shifting policies, and the pace of innovation are changing how entrepreneurs survive and thrive, especially those navigating the public sector.In this episode we turn to the DC Small Business Development Center to explore how they're meeting the need in this moment. With a mission rooted in hands-on guidance, deep partnerships, and real-world experience, the DC SBDC is helping local businesses move from uncertainty to action – and we're diving into what that support really looks like today.Guest Bio:Mr. Carl Brown is the State and Executive Director of the DC Small Business Development Center at Howard University, bringing 25+ years of experience in HR, marketing, procurement, and government contracting, including roles at Verizon, Pepsi, and in federal and local government as a warranted contracting officer. He is also the creator and host of The Small Business Report on SiriusXM, with insights featured in The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, and The Washington Informer, and is known for developing the financial literacy comic series Sammy the Saver. As a speaker, coach, and media voice, he brings a comprehensive, real-world perspective on how small businesses grow and thrive.Call(s) to Action:Visit dcsbdc.org to schedule a session or explore upcoming workshops. Not in DC? Find your local SBDC anywhere in the country at americassbdc.org.Help spread the word about Unveiled: GovCon Stories: https://shows.acast.com/unveiled-govcon-storiesDo you want to be a guest or recommend a topic that you would like to learn or hear about on the podcast? Let us know through our guest feedback and registration form.Links:DC SBDC: www.dcsbdc.orgThe Small Business Report The Small Business Report on Sirius XM Channel 141: https://www.thesmallbusinessreport.biz/ Sammy The Saver - Financial Literacy Superhero: https://www.sammythesaver.com/Sponsors:The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the hosts and guests, and do not reflect the views or endorsements of our sponsors.Withum – Diamond Sponsor!Withum is a forward-thinking, technology-driven advisory and accounting firm, helping clients to be in a position of strength in today's complex business environment. Go to Withum's website to learn more about how they can help your business! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

En Haïti, les habitants de Pont-Sondé ont subi à nouveau samedi soir (29 novembre 2025) les assauts meurtriers du gang Gran Grif, considéré par l'ONU comme le plus violent de la région. Dans cette localité du Bas-Artibonite, plus d'une dizaine de personnes sont mortes et une vingtaine de maisons ont été incendiées, selon un bilan encore provisoire communiqué par des organisations locales. Le 3 octobre 2024 déjà, le gang Gran Grif avait fait plus de 70 morts à Pont-Sondé. Hier (2 décembre 2025), la ville était presque déserte. Selon plusieurs témoignages recueillis par Ronel Paul, l'attaque de ce week-end a été encore plus violente que la précédente. Si le gang Gran Grif s'acharne ainsi contre Pont-Sondé, c'est parce que c'est «une zone stratégique», explique le journaliste de RFI. Les criminels cherchent à contrôler le marché de cette localité ainsi que des axes routiers essentiels.   San Francisco contre la malbouffe et les aliments ultratransformés San Francisco a lancé ce mardi (2 décembre) une procédure judiciaire contre Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mars ou bien encore Nestlé. Au total, ce sont 10 géants des aliments ultratransformés qui sont visés. «10 entreprises qui fabriquent certains des aliments et des boissons les plus populaires du pays», note le New York Times. Ces produits ultratransformés aux emballages colorés représentent 70% de ce que l'on trouve dans les supermarchés étasuniens, précise encore le quotidien. Et ils sont responsables d'une «crise nationale de santé publique», écrit le San Francisco Standard. L'obésité, le diabète de type 2, des maladies cardiovasculaires, le cancer et une détérioration cognitive... voilà les problèmes de santé liés à la consommation de cette malbouffe, précise le quotidien argentin Infobae. Des problèmes de santé qui plombent les finances de San Francisco, peut-on lire dans la plainte déposée par la ville démocrate. Selon le San Francisco Standard, la ville accuse ces entreprises d'avoir chimiquement conçu ses produits afin de rendre les gens addicts, de les commercialiser de manière trompeuse en les présentant comme nutritifs et de cibler les communautés noires et latinos.Difficile de dire si cette plainte va aboutir. Mais le San Francisco Standard fait remarquer que la ville a déjà enregistré, par le passé, des victoires en matière de santé publique. Autre signe encourageant : le ministre de la Santé, Robert Kennedy Junior, est lui aussi contre la nourriture ultratransformée.   Inquiétudes au sujet des tensions à la frontière entre le Pérou et le Chili Samedi 29 novembre, le Pérou a déclaré l'état d'urgence face à une arrivée de migrants, essentiellement vénézuéliens, en provenance de son voisin. Des migrants inquiets après les menaces du candidat de l'extrême droite à la présidentielle chilienne, José Antonio Kast qui promet des expulsions massives s'il remporte le second tour qui se tiendra le 14 décembre, rappelle El Comercio. Lundi (1er décembre), les ministres des Affaires étrangères des deux pays se sont vus pour définir «une réponse migratoire bilatérale». Ils se sont mis d'accord sur plusieurs mesures : patrouilles communes à la frontière, renforcement des échanges d'informations entre les deux pays et création d'un comité qui se réunira dès la semaine prochaine...Le quotidien péruvien rappelle que, depuis plusieurs années, les deux voisins entretiennent «une relation saine» et ont développé «des liens économiques et sociaux» forts. Il ne faudrait pas qu'un plan d'expulsions massives vienne affecter cette bonne entente, s'inquiète El Comercio qui presse les autorités péruviennes d'agir sans attendre le 14 décembre. Le pays doit anticiper «une possible vague migratoire en provenance du Chili» et doit être en mesure de garantir la maîtrise de ses frontières tout en respectant les droits des migrants. «Il n'y a que comme ça que le Pérou pourra protéger ses intérêts nationaux tout en défendant la dignité humaines des sans-papiers», insiste El Comercio.   Comment Nicolas Maduro a renforcé sa sécurité En public, Nicolas Maduro apparaît souriant, détendu, nonchalant même. Il danse et poste des vidéos de propagande sur TikTok, raconte le New York Times. En privé, le président au pouvoir depuis 12 ans et qui ne compte pas partir, prend ses précautions.  Il est toujours aussi présent dans la vie des Vénézuéliens, s'adressant à eux presque tous les jours. Mais «il participe de moins en moins à des événements prévus et à des émissions en direct, préférant les apparitions surprises et les messages enregistrés à l'avance», souligne le New York Times.Autre mesure de sécurité : Nicolas Maduro change de téléphones portables et de lits, enfin d'endroits où il dort régulièrement, écrit le journal. Nicolas Maduro, qui craint d'être trahi, a également donné plus de poids à ses gardes-du-corps cubains et a augmenté le nombre d'agents du renseignement cubains dans les rangs de l'armée vénézuélienne, révèle également le quotidien.Pour Nicolas Maduro, la menace vient surtout de l'intérieur. «La plus grande crise (que connaît le régime), c'est une crise de légitimité», estime dans les colonnes du New York Times, Andrés Izarra, ancien ministre de Nicolas Maduro, qui a rompu avec le régime et vit désormais en exil. Nicolas Maduro a perdu les élections de l'été dernier (2024) et le soutien du peuple. Mais il est dans le déni complet et refuse d'admettre que le pays le déteste, ajoute Andrès Izarra. Selon lui, même si les navires de guerre américains s'en vont, les problèmes de Nicolas Maduro ne seront pas terminés.   Au Venezuela, les cryptomonnaies pour préserver son pouvoir d'achat Au Venezuela, l'économie se dégrade de nouveau. Le pays a renoué avec une inflation à trois chiffres et le bolivar se dévalue tous les jours. Si, à une époque, les autorités avaient décidé d'autoriser l'usage du dollar pour rassurer la population, aujourd'hui, ce sont les cryptomonnaies qui servent de refuge. C'est un dossier de notre correspondante à Caracas, Alice Campaignolle.   Le journal de la 1ère En Guadeloupe, la procureure de la République a donné des précisions au sujet du meurtre d'un psychiatre au Gosier.

¡Bienvenidos a Baseball News! Hoy arrancamos con una bomba: Kyle Schwarber está siendo perseguido por varios equipos del Este, aunque los Phillies siguen firmes en intentar retenerlo. ¿Se moverá una de las piezas ofensivas más temidas de MLB? Lo analizamos con todos los escenarios posibles rumbo al 2026. Además, repasamos todas las noticias importantes del día en el mundo del béisbol: ⚾ Mets sorprenden y contratan a Devin Williams, alejándose definitivamente de Edwin "Sugar" Díaz. ⚾ Phillies intentan retener a Kyle Schwarber, pero hay varios equipos pujando fuerte. ⚾ MLB y la MLBPA publican los resultados del programa antidopaje. ⚾ Wilyer Abreu gana el Festival del Jonrón Pepsi en Venezuela. ⚾ Movimiento en la Lidom: Ramón Santiago nuevo manager de Leones del Escogido. ⚾ Cambio en la Liga Dominicana: Jorge Mateo pasa a Estrellas Orientales por Eguy Rosario. ⚾ En LMP: Leo Heras y Darel Torres elegidos jugador y lanzador de la semana. ⚾ Lorenzo Bundy es nombrado manager de Tomateros de Culiacán. Todo esto, análisis, opinión y tu participación en vivo. ¡No olvides suscribirte y activar la campanita!

Ugandan gospel artist Minister Rachel K sits down with Bonny Kibuuka on The Ugandan Boy Talk Show for her most open and revealing interview yet. From her early career in Los Angeles and MTV Base rotation, to performing on the Pepsi 2010 World Cup anthem “Oh Africa” with Akon and Keri Hilson, Rachel K shares the real story behind her journey.In this episode, she talks about:

BIO: Edwin Endlich is the Chief Marketing Officer of Wysh and President of the National Alliance for Financial Literacy and Inclusion.STORY: Edwin's worst investment was buying Tilray stock at $143 during the early hype of legal cannabis investing. Swept up in the excitement of a “new frontier,” he held on as the price crashed—eventually selling at around 30 cents and losing over 99% of his investment.LEARNING: The fundamentals always apply, even in new or exciting industries. Don't let hype replace due diligence. “We're in this AI conversation, let's not forget the fundamentals of the market. Learn from what has happened in this space before. And don't get too cocky.”Edwin Endlich Guest profileEdwin Endlich is the Chief Marketing Officer of Wysh and President of the National Alliance for Financial Literacy and Inclusion. Edwin has spent his career at the intersection of marketing, fintech, and AI, helping financial institutions tell more human stories in an increasingly digital world. He's passionate about making financial protection simple, accessible, and even a little more fun — proving you don't need buzzwords or hype to make banking and technology relevant.Worst investment everThere's nothing quite like the rush of feeling early—early to a trend, early to a movement, early to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That's precisely what Edwin felt in 2015–2016, when investing in legal cannabis became possible in parts of the United States.For the first time, regular people could invest in a newly legalized industry. It felt like history happening in real time, a frontier market ready to explode. Edwin and his friends didn't want to miss out, especially when companies were going public, and their share prices seemed destined to skyrocket.One of those stocks was Tilray. At $143 a share, Edwin was convinced he was buying the future. He imagined stock splits, booming demand, and a cannabis empire rising from the ground floor. Instead, he watched that $143 tumble month after month, until he finally sold it for around 30 cents. The emotional rollercoaster of hope, disappointment, and finally acceptance was a journey Edwin will never forget.A 99.3% loss.He now calls it his worst investment—not just because of the financial hit, but because of how powerfully excitement and hype clouded his judgment.Lessons learnedEvery investor thinks their situation is unique. But in reality, the same patterns repeat again and again.Markets take time to mature.Regulation can shift overnight.Early doesn't always mean right.Excitement is not a strategy.Andrew's takeawaysA portfolio isn't just about diversification by industry or geography; it's also about diversifying across stages of maturity.Stable, well-regulated companies like Coca-Cola or Pepsi behave very differently from early-stage, hype-driven industries, such as the cannabis sector.Even large companies, with teams of top analysts, often get it wrong.Actionable adviceIf Edwin could offer one piece of advice to anyone starry-eyed over the next big thing, it would be this:Do your due diligence. Seriously.Before you invest in anything—especially something exciting, futuristic, or rapidly trending—slow down and ask:Has this been done before?What can I learn from past bubbles?What does...

WATER FROM YOUR EYES - "Spaceship" ("IT'S A BEAUTIFUL PLACE", 2025) / FANTASY OF A BROKEN HEART - "We Confront the Demon in Mysterious Ways" ("CHAOS PRACTITIONER", 2025) / HOME COUNTIES - "Humdrum" ("HUMDRUM", 2025) / PEPSI & THE CLITS (FEATURING PABLO SOLO) - "Hercules" (2025) / FINOM - "DIRT" ("NOT GOD", 2024) / BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD - "Forever Howlong" ("FOREVER HOWLONG", 2025) / HAMILTON LEITHAUSER - "Fist of Flowers" ("THIS SIDE OF THE ISLAND", 2025) / HANNAH COHEN - "Baby, You're Lying" ("EARTHSTAR MOUNTAIN", 2025) / LIAM KAZAR - "Try Again" ("PILOT LIGHT", 2025) / JEFF TWEEDY - "Out in the Dark" ("TWILIGHT OVERRIDE", 2025) / HALEY HEYNDERICKX & MAX GARCIA CONOVER - "To Each Their Dot" ("WHAT OF OUR NATURE", 2025) / JESSEE SYKES AND THE SWEET HEREAFTER - “Gentle Chaperone” ("FOREVER, I'VE BEEN BEING BORN", 2025) / Escuchar audio

Geoff, Gavin and Andrew talk about phone mystery, a mysterious dog, Regulation Detectives, reverse osmosis, advent calendar, Black Metal Friday, sponsorship, Ball x Pit, playing games wrong, Crackdown, Fallout 3, radio, Regulation Colors, Blobby, the most normal, Coke, Pepsi, Starbucks, percent gravity, franchises, and sushi. BLACK METAL FRIDAY is THIS FRIDAY at https://regulationstore.com and use code BLACKMETAL to get 16% off starting Friday through Cyber Monday DECEMBER 1st we're doing an advent calendar on our Patreon all the way through Christmas Eve! Join as a free member on Patreon.com/theregulationpod Sponsored by AG1. Head to DRINKAG1.com/REGULATION to get a FREE Welcome Kit with an AG1 Flavor Sampler and a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2, when you first subscribe! Support us directly at https://www.patreon.com/TheRegulationPod Stay up to date, get exclusive supplemental content, and connect with other Regulation Listeners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prebiotic cola, plant-based (and AI-inspired?) pulled chicken and protein-packed marshmallows. The hosts crack open Pepsi's new prebiotic cola and discuss whether a stevia-sweetened "functional" soda can win over classic cola fans. They also dig into Just Meat's big win at Walmart and what it says about the future of meat analogs, and why protein marshmallows might actually work in your next s'more. Show notes: 0:25: Rotten Roaches. The BevNET Bowls. Cloying & Fibrous. Who's Eating This Stuff? S'More, Please. – Jacqui explains why there is a bright red "biohazard" bag on her desk and the hosts joke about modern marketing tactics. They pivot to a preview of the upcoming NOSH Live, BevNET Live and  Brewbound Live events, highlighting opportunities for founders to meet retailers, investors, and strategic partners. They sample PepsiCo's newly launched Pepsi Prebiotic – a lower-calorie, stevia-sweetened soda that comes in classic cola and cherry vanilla flavors – and opine on the minimalist white cans and whether Pepsi has clearly communicated the benefits. The hosts then discuss JUST Meat's newly launched plant-based pulled chicken, which is now available in four flavors at 3,000 Walmart stores, which sparks a debate about whether mainstream shoppers truly want meat analogs, and how clean-label concerns are shaping the category. Shifting gears, Ray highlights news that BeatBox Beverages – the colorful, party-forward, wine-based cocktail brand – is rumored to be an acquisition target by AB InBev in a deal reportedly worth around $700 million. Ray introduces Primal Sweets' protein marshmallows, which contain 25 grams of protein per bag and no sugar, and Albero D'oro cocktail cherries, before Jacqui presents Flour + Water's artisanal pasta, and Mike praises Hiyo's new pineapple coconut "social tonic." Brands in this episode: Rotten Candy, Oh So Easy, Keya's, Oddball, Pepsi, Poppi, Nixie, Just Meat, Beyond Meat, BeatBox, Primal Sweets, Flour + Water, Albero D'oro, Hiyo, Poppi

The Benefits of an MBA During Uncertain Times Today's guest, Dawn, graduated as a PepsiCo Scholar from Harvard Business School with concentrations in finance and marketing. Dawn was also admitted to the Stanford GSB. Dawn is a full-time advisor and senior consultant with SBC who has 18+ years of experience getting clients from around the world admitted into full-time, deferred and executive MBA programs. Dawn has a high success rate having clients admitted every year. 99% of clients who work with her on four or more schools have gained admission. She has had several double admits to Harvard and Stanford. Outside of her work in admissions consulting, Dawn has experience at companies such as: Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Pepsi, the Carlyle Group and Warner Bros. In this episode Chandler and Dawn talk about a range of topics related to the value of an MBA during uncertain times, including: The value of an MBA in today's changing world, Whether or not an MBA really matters if you are doing well in your current career, The benefits of earning an MBA for mid-career professionals, How AI will influence job and career opportunities in the coming years, and a range of other topics. Chandler and Dawn will also share a number of specific client examples and lessons learned from recent application cycles. Listening to this episode is a must for any applicant considering the value of an MBA in today's rapidly evolving world.

Happy Thanksgiving!Kylie and Justine start by discussing their unique Canadian Thanksgiving tradition celebrated in October, which involves a feast with maple syrup and everyone wearing "Canadian tuxedos."They then dive into the history of Turkey Trots, the popular Thanksgiving Day races, noting the first one in Buffalo, New York, in 1896 as the oldest continuous footrace in North America. They share numerous personal "running scared" stories including a protein shake mistake and a grand slam breakfast gone terribly wrong! They also talk about other common American Thanksgiving traditions, culminating with an experiment of tasting pickle-flavored Pepsi combos. You'll laugh, you'll cry and best of all you'll be entertained on your next run!Support the showSubscribe to Running Scared Media wherever you get your podcasts for more Sole Sisters episodes! RunningScaredMedia.comVisit our shop to purchase our jogcasts and other merchEmail us at: therunningscaredpodcast@gmail.comFollow us:Instagram @runningscaredmediaJoin our FB Running Group

Interview Date:Episode Summary:MSA New York's Talent Director Bre Traver breaks down exactly how dancers get on an agent's radar and build sustainable careers. From her path from dancer to agent, to what MSA looks for in reels, headshots, and Instagrams, Bre shares practical, no-fluff guidance on submissions, onboarding, and being an ideal client. She contrasts the NYC vs. LA markets (live stage, Broadway, tours, award shows), outlines big client don'ts, and explains how agents scout in class, at shows, and online. The lively Q&A hits trends, triple-threat training, youth work, self-tapes vs. in-person calls, and why persistence, professionalism, and clear goals separate dancers who book “the big jobs.”Shownotes:(0:00) – Welcome & intro to MSA and Bre's NYC leadership (11:28) – Bre's journey: dancer to MSA Talent Director(20:24) – Inside MSA NYC: Broadway, tours, TV, and more (24:53) – How dancers get signed and scouted by agents (28:14) – Social media tips: Instagram presence that books work (32:23) – Onboarding goals: materials, availability, and communication(35:56) – NYC vs LA markets: knowing where you belong (39:10) – Professionalism tips: biggest audition and booking don'ts(44:10) – How agents scout in class and online presence matters (51:12) – Q&A takeaways: training, self-tapes, visas, and persistenceBiography:Bre Traver joined McDonald Selznick Associates East Coast division in 2007. She worked through the ranks as an assistant to Jr. Agent, to Franchised Sr. Agent, to Director of the Talent Department to now Equity Partner in the company. Prior to agenting, Bre grew up as a dancer and received a BFA from University at Buffalo. Bre is still serving as a lead agent for MSA's NY talent roster. Over the years she has had the pleasure of booking clients on national commercials (APPLE, Advil PM, Pepsi), feature films (Best of The Best, West Side Story, In The Heights, 13, Tick Tick Boom), television (SNL, Law & Order, Pose, Maisel, Étoile, GMA, The Tonight Show, Last Week Tonight), award shows (MTV VMAs, BET Awards, Super Bowl Halftime), national tours (Hamilton, Wicked, Moulin Rogue, MJ, Hell's Kitchen, Beetlejuice, Some Like It Hot, The Notebook, Mean Girls, Chicago), and live work (Corporate industrials, New York Fashion Week, The Met Gala). Bre is proud to work on behalf of such an established roster of talent and enjoys keeping her finger on the pulse of our ever-changing industry!Connect on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breezyotoole/?hl=enWebsite: www.msaagency.com

Mackey, Judd, Dex and Thor discuss the State of the Minnesota Vikings and JJ McCarthy from Buffalo Wild Wings in Roseville (presented by Pepsi)! The boys try to figure out why so many people are quick to deem JJ McCarthy a bust, take questions from the audience, get Thor's latest 2026 Minnesota Vikings mock draft, play a game of Random Viking of the Week, and more! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One football team owner called it "the single most impressive symbol of being a champion in all of sports." Yep, he was talking about the National Football League's Super Bowl ring. The rings on Super Bowl champions are worth many thousands of dollars each one! Can you imagine losing something that valuable, that irreplaceable? Former Oakland Raiders champion, Gene Upshaw, can remember that. Yeah, he can imagine it. To keep his Super Bowl ring safe at home, he put it inside a bank that looked like a Pepsi can. Problem: he forgot to tell his housekeepers. You know where this is going? Yep, they mistook the bank for an empty pop can and tossed it out, ring and all. I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Treasure In Your Mirror." That was a costly mistake - trashing treasure because of the container it was in. Well, that's a mistake many people are making. Except the treasure is themselves. And maybe we needed to talk about this today because maybe you're throwing away a treasure called you. Now you may not feel very valuable right now. Maybe you're not feeling very good about how you look, or what you weigh, or the fact that you're still single. You're not sure how much you're really worth. But you're making the same mistake those housekeepers made when they threw away that ring - judging the worth of what's inside by the container you come in. It could be that you feel pretty worthless because you've been passed over, put down, rejected, maybe abandoned, or maybe abused. And the tragedy is that you may have been throwing yourself away because you don't know how valuable you are. There are a lot of ways to throw yourself away. You can throw yourself away sexually, socially by the people you hang out with, chemically, alcoholically, just by giving up or withdrawing, maybe even thinking suicide. But you have worth that you'll never see just by looking in a mirror or basing it on how other hurting people are treating you. If you want to get an evaluation of your worth, you've got to go to the One who created you. He's the one who knows your value. In our word for today from the Word of God in the Bible, in 2 Corinthians 6:16, your Creator says, "We are the temple of the living God. As God has said...'I will be their God, and they will be My people...I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters,' says the Lord Almighty." Did you hear what the God of the universe says about those who belong to Him? They're His temple that He lives in, His people that He walks with, sons and daughters of the King! If you don't feel like you are priceless treasure, maybe it's because you are without the One who gave you your value in the first place; the Creator who made you as His one-of-a-kind creation. You're missing the love you were made for. And that's because, well, we've chosen over and over again to turn our back on God and do things our way. But the Bible says God values you so much that He thought you were worth having His Son die for you! Good Friday was for you. Picture Jesus hanging on that cross. That was to pay for your sin so you could belong to Him. You'll never know how much you're really worth until you are in His loving arms. Jesus won't make you give yourself to Him. It's your choice to finally end those self-directed, wasted years and to stand at His cross and say, "Jesus, the 'me' years are over. You love me. You died for me. I'm yours." Why don't you make this the day that you become a member of His family. And say, "Jesus, I'm yours from this day on." There's a website I want to direct you to, it's ours. If you go there you'll find what you need to know from the Bible to be sure you belong to Jesus. It's ANewStory.com. Go there please. Maybe you've believed that you really don't matter much, and maybe you've thrown yourself away for long enough. You mattered enough to Jesus that He poured out His life for you. Isn't it time you belong to the One who loves you most?

For this episode Chandler and SBC consultant Dawn talk about key questions to consider when applying during Round Two. Dawn graduated as a PepsiCo Scholar from Harvard Business School with concentrations in finance and marketing. Dawn was also admitted to the Stanford GSB. Dawn is a full-time advisor and senior consultant with SBC who has 18+ years of experience getting clients from around the world admitted into full-time, deferred and executive MBA programs. Dawn has a high success rate having clients admitted every year. 99% of clients who work with her on four or more schools have gained admission. She has had several double admits to Harvard and Stanford. Outside of her work in admissions consulting, Dawn has experience at companies such as: Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Pepsi, the Carlyle Group and Warner Bros. In this episode Chandler and Dawn talk about a range of topics to help applicants stand out during the Round Two, including: Why do business schools have more than one round for admissions? Do you think there is a difference in applying round one or a later round? Is there any advantage in applying in Round Two? Chandler and Dawn will also share a number of specific client examples and lessons learned from Round Two applications. Listening to this episode is a must for any applicant applying during Round Two.

STEAM Box vs the Panthers from the Boys and Girls Club of Pawtucket. They tackle "rage baiting", and fishing questions to make people fight online and generate impressions. The youth examine why controversial hot takes are popular and question if they should “walk into that trap". They discuss tribalism by exploring what they are passionate about defending, including The Weeknd, the Cowboys, and anime. They compare sports fandom (like the Cowboys or AEW vs. WWE) to arguments over brands like Coke vs. Pepsi and Xbox vs. PlayStation, debating if it's possible to accept differences and look at both sides.#RageBaiting #Tribalism #SteamboxVersus #HotTakes #TheWeeknd #PawtucketPanthers #STEAMBoxYouth

Am 16.11.1915 patentiert Coca-Cola eine eigene Flasche. Ihre Form sticht heraus und verhilft der Marke zum Durchbruch. Dabei basiert das Design auf einem Missverständnis. Von Laura Dresch.

Democrats are celebrating a collection of election wins across the country this week. Messaging around affordability and the cost of living scored big wins for the party in the Virginia and New Jersey governor's races, as well as mayoral races in several major cities. Will a successful off year help the party smooth over its internal disagreements heading into next year's midterms?California passed Proposition 50, a proverbial counter punch to redistricting efforts in Texas and other red states. The state's governor, Gavin Newsom, says the legislation is a temporary fix to the campaign by President Donald Trump to create more congressional seats for conservatives. Democrats promise to be the “adults in the room,” but can they deliver?Can voters really exert their power if the two major parties control the candidates they have to choose from? KCRW discusses one potential solution to the political Coke vs. Pepsi problem.